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Industrial Problems 



BY 

N. A. RICHARDSON 

Author of "Introduction to Socialism," "Methods of 
Acquiring Possession," "Railroads and Reform/' etc. 



CHICAGO 
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 

1910 






*\*r 



Copyright, 1909 
By N. A. RICHARDSON 



i46668 
SEP .48; 1909 



PREFACE. 

This book is intended for use in the general propaganda 
work of the Socialist party. I believe it contains the sort 
of matter that should be in the hands and heads of the pro- 
ducing masses of our country. I have set down the things 
that I think all should know, and have endeavored to state 
them in language that they can easily follow. 

There are few of our citizens but realize that there is 
much that is wrong in matters industrial, many things that 
should and must be remedied. They know that we are 
facing serious economic problems; but they do not know 
either the nature or the scope of those problems. Then it 
follows that they do not know that those problems have a 
common origin and therefore a common solution. To teach 
that lesson is the chief mission of this work. 

I have hewn sufficiently close for all practical purposes 
to what is technically scientific in Socialist philosophy. My 
ambition is to get some truths into people's minds and to do 
this I have endeavored to keep within range of easy com- 
prehension. The author is willing to submit to adverse 
criticism, if any see fit to administer it, if only he can im- 
press upon his fellow men the great lesson to be learned 
from the industrial conditions that now obtain. If he can 
aid his readers in a sane interpretation of the events in 
which they are personally taking part, he shall have accom- 
plished much and will be richly rewarded in that accom- 
plishment. N. A. RICHARDSON. 
San Bernardino, California, 
April 20, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. THE PROBLEMS, 

Page. 

I. In Outline 9 

II. The Assumption 10 

III. The Two Dollars' Worth 12 

IV. The Eight Dollars' Worth 20 

V. The Concentration of Wealth 29 

VI. Corruption 51 

VII. The Unemployed j6 

VIII. Panics 96 

IX. Enslavement of Women and Children 109 

X. Degeneracy 132 

XI. Industrial Wars 141 

XII. International Wars 159 

XIII. The Liquor Traffic 165 



PART II. SOME VITAL TOPICS. 

I. Property — Collective and Private 175 

II. Labor 183 

III. The Farmer 192 

IV. Government . . 197 

V. Program, Organization and Tactics 203 

VI. Critics 216 



INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

PART I. 

THE PROBLEMS 

I. 

IN OUTLINE 

The people of the United States, in common with those 
of all enlightened nations, are today confronted by some 
of the most momentous and far-reaching industrial problems 
that ever engaged the minds of men. 

These problems are far-reaching in that they are simul- 
taneously agitating the people of every land; and they are 
momentous in that their solution involves revolutionary 
measures. 

While they are world wide in their scope, yet customs, 
governments and international law are such that each nation 
must, to a very great degree, solve the problems for itself 
and make application of its solution through the channels 
of its own institutions. 

To such proportions has each of these problems devel- 
oped in our country that evidence of the existence of one 
or more of them is everywhere apparent ; and the necessity 
for some sort of remedy is keenly felt by every intelligent 
and humane citizen. The question is only what and how? 

The most important of these problems may be enumer- 
ated as follows: 

1. The concentration of the ownership of wealth. 

9 



10 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

2. Corruption in all walks of life — official and 
non-official. 

3. The unemployed masses of labor. 

4. Intermittent periods of business depression 
known as panics. 

5. The practical enslavement of women and chil- 
dren in our industries. 

6. Degeneracy among all classes from the palace 
to the slum. 

7. Strikes, lockouts, boycotts — war between em- 
ployers and employed. 

8. International wars. 

9. The liquor traffic. 

Here are nine great evils. Each is a bar to human 
progress; each is, to a greater or less degree, inimical to 
national life. Like diseases they are upon us and necessity 
for their cure is imperative. The task then set before us is 
to find the source of these evils and the consequent remedy 
for them. If investigation discloses that they have their 
origin in a common cesspool, that they spring from a com- 
mon cause, the question of how to deal with them is very 
much simplified. 



II. 

THE ASSUMPTION 

A casual survey of the problems enumerated in the 
preceding paragraphs reveals them all as, at base, indus- 
trial; and an analysis, though it may be superficial, of the 
system of industry co-existent with them, forces upon us the 
fact that they are each and all incidental to that system. 



THE ASSUMPTION 11 

This is a sweeping indictment, and, if it can be sustained, 
means that the system of industry against which it lies 
has served its usefulness. 

As a basis for the argument that is to follow, we must 
make an assumption. This is necessary because it is not 
now possible to obtain exact figures on the matter in hand. 
Let us assume that the retail price of what is produced by 
an average day's labor in the industries of the nation is $10. 

It is here meant to include among those who labor in 
the industries only those who do really needful labor. The 
nation swarms with hurrying, grasping busybodies and 
supernumeraries, most of whom are thriving fairly well, but 
who are about as essential to productive industry as are 
fleas to the well-being of a dog. They work, it is true. 
Yes, they work, themselves, and they work other people; 
but the nation's wealth is not increased thereby. It is meant 
here to include only those doing such labor, mental or 
manual, as is essential to the highest achievements of civili- 
zation. All these, whether they be farmers, mechanics, hod 
carriers, teachers, doctors, nurses, or trainmen are necessary 
to production and are, therefore, productive laborers. The 
assumption is, that the average day's labor of each of these 
industrially necessary laborers produces what retails over 
the counters of the nation for $10. The figures may be a 
little high or low. That does not materially concern us.* 



*From the author's insight as a merchant into the matter of fac- 
tory, wholesale, jobber's and retail prices, as well as from a careful 
study of the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of 
Labor and such government documents as Bulletins 57 and 93, U. S. 
Census of Manufactures, 1905, he is convinced that the estimate of 
$10 is reasonable. For reasons that may become more apparent as 
this volume is perused, it is very difficult to obtain anything like 
exact figures on much that concerns profits and investments. Bul- 
letin 57, page 10, tells us: "Census statistics are too general, and 
the reports are not prepared in a manner to justify their use for 
computing the returns to capital invested or the amount of capital 
required for a given product." Our courts have decided that a Mr. 



12 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

In the industrial system that now obtains in all civilized 
countries and that is known as the capitalist system, that 
$10 worth of produce is divided into two parts. These parts 
have but one characteristic in common — they each originate 
in productive labor. The $10 worth of goods is solely the 
result of productive activity ; the produce is the embodiment 
of all useful, socially necessary labor. Otherwise these 
parts have nothing in common. 

One part goes to the laborer who does the needful 
work ; the other part does not go to him, but to another or 
others. 

Again let us assume that the part that goes to the 
laborer (as his wage) is $2 worth.* Then $8 worth goes 
elsewhere.** 

We must now follow the $2 worth and the $8 worth 
each to its destination and observe the function that it ful- 
fills in human affairs. 

III. 

THE TWO DOLLARS' WORTH 

We have assumed that the labor essential to production 
— to maintaining and advancing civilization — receives as 



Harriman need not answer questions, even in court, that may reveal 
"business secrets." though (or because) those "secrets" involve a 
violation of law on the part of a corporation so flagrant that it has 
become a national disgrace. Out of court, then, we must not expect 
such as he to make any startling revelations. 

*The average daily wage of all wage-earners of this nation is 
less than $2 for each da}' of actual labor. Census Bulletin No. 57 
previously cited reports 5,470,321 wage-earners constantly employed 
in 216,292 establishments, representing all forms of industry, receiv- 
ing as their annual wage $2,611,540,532, or an average for each 
worker of $477.40. That is $1.52 per each of 313 days. Even for one 
especially selected week, the workers averaged but $1.67 per day. 
Including officers and all in these establishments, they averaged but 
$1.70 per day or $531.60 per year. 

** It will be observed that if future and more exact figures should 



THE TWO DOLLARS' WORTH 13 

compensation for expended energy and skill, an average of 
$2 (or $2 worth of produce) per day. In the discussion of 
such matters as we have in hand, we can logically deal only 
with averages. The fact that certain isolated laborers, or 
even small groups of laborers, may receive more than $5 
per day and certain others less than $5 per month, does not 
here concern us. The average is the essential considera- 
tion. Nor are we concerned with the concrete question of 
the sufficiency or insufficiency of this average. 

The question is, what is this $2 worth that goes to 
labor? The answer is, it is the market price (or exchange 
value) of a commodity. 

This is the point that must be made clear. This is the 
fact, the principle, upon which the capitalist system of in- 
dustry is based — the one thing that, in existing conditions, 
makes possible its ravenous, legalized robbery — the exploita- 
tion of labor. 

Our markets or stores are but a collection of commod- 
ities; our merchants and traders deal with nothing else. 
Commodities are things evolved through the process of pro- 
duction with the general purpose in view of exchanging 
them for other commodities.* 

When one goes to market and purchases, for instance, 
the commodity known as a bicycle, what does his payment 
include? He pays interest (or dividends) on the stocked 



reduce the $10 and consequently the $8, the $2 is already reduced, so 
the ratio of the part that goes to labor to that which does not, would 
still hover around 2:8 or 1:4. That is, labor can purchase in the 
markets about one-fifth of its product; or, in other words, this 
system of industry exploits labor out of about four-fifths of what 
it produces. 

♦"Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his 
own labor, creates, indeed, use-values, but not commodities. In 
order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but 
use-values for others, social use-values." Marx: "Capital," page 8. 



14 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

valuation (principally water) of an iron mine; for the wear 
and tear of machinery used in working the mine; for the 
ingredients used in blasting, etc. ; for the labor employed in 
getting out the ore ; for transporting the ore to the smelter ; 
for the smelting of the ore into steel, and dividends on sev- 
eral times the amount of money invested in the plant; for 
the transportation of the steel product to the various fac- 
tories where the different parts are made, and dividends 
on several times the cost of the transporting medium; for 
the labor of making the various parts, for incidental ex- 
penses, including salaries often for useless, decorative func- 
tionaries that spend half their time in Europe, corruption 
funds used on city councils, politicians, legislatures and for 
campaign purposes ; for interest on every dollar invested in 
labor or incidentals, and dividends on stocks representing 
several times the cash invested in the factories; for trans- 
portation of the various parts to the "bicycle factory" where 
they will be assembled, and again dividends on several times 
the cost of the railways; for the labor of assembling the 
parts and, again, incidentals, often supernumeraries and 
dividends on all investments (generally including interest 
on borrowed capital) and on one or many times the amount 
invested in the plant; for transportation to the wholesaler 
and dividends on the watered stock of the transporters ; for 
the labor necessary to handling the goods in wholesaling, 
rent for building, interest on borrowed capital, cost of ad- 
vertising and traveling salesmen,* often, as before, inci- 



*A traveling salesman, who had for years represented (and still 
represents) one of the great wholesale houses of Chicago, told the 
author that the manager of the establishment showed him wherein it 
was necessaryto sell their goods at an advance of at least 50% on 
the factory price, because an allowance of at least 30% must always 
be made as the cost of selling the goods, — for advrtising, corre- 
spondence and salesmen — or, as he worded it, "It costs 30% to sell 
the goods." 

In the city in which the author lives — about 15,000 population — 



THE TWO DOLLARS WORTH 15 

dentals and, over all, a big margin of profit to the firm; for 
transportation to the jobbers (including always the watered 
dividends) and here again a duplication of every item enu- 
merated for the wholesaler — labor, rent, interest, salesmen, 
advertising, license, taxes, incidentals, losses and profits; 
for transportation (and the regular profits) to the retailer, 
and, again, a full duplication of every item enumerated for 
the wholesaler. And the fact must not here be overlooked, 
that the rate of profit to the wholesale, jobbing and retailing 
concerns must be such a per cent as will support from two 
to twenty times the number of such establishments as would 
be required if industry were thoroughly organized and the 
unnecessary, parasitic elements eliminated. 

This is an outline, though incomplete, of the bills that 
the purchase money meets when the bicycle is retailed. 
Should it be a source of surprise to learn that $2 paid for 
needful labor must, in some manner, be transformed into 
$10 worth of goods at the retail counter? The process of 
transformation will appear as we proceed with our investi- 
gation. 

This is the process, in the main, through which commod- 
ities must pass in capitalist production. 

The term "production" is here used in its broadest sense 
as including all labor expended upon a commodity, from the 
time the orignal raw material lies in one of nature's store- 



he has, from careful observation, extending through a number of 
years, learned that the cost to his community of traveling salesmen 
is nearly equal to the entire sum expended by the city on a splendid 
system of public education, including a high school. 

This city's annual advertising bill is at least $75,000, sufficient, in 
a few years, to build every needed bridge and pave every street. 
Yet, if an attempt were made to annually collect from our people, by 
direct methods, such a sum for street improvement, it would at once 
dislodge every official connected with "such high-handed methods 
of administration." 

The defenders of capitalism may tell us how much our national 
wealth is increased through the efforts of salesmen and advertisers. 



16 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

houses, until it ceases to be a commodity by passing into the 
hands of a consumer. 

But such is the capitalist system of production that the 
productive laborers must expend ten hours of labor for a 
wage that can command only what two hours of that labor 
creates. The rest of his time is spent in producing what 
must support the numerous parasitic elements that throng 
the entire course from raw material to consumer. And 
this condition is imposed upon these laborers, as we shall 
shortly see, because they can subsist upon what they can 
produce in the two hours. The parasites subsist upon what 
is produced in the other eight. 

Let us not further digress nor too far anticipate. What 
does one pay for the bicycle or any other commodity? One 
pays the cost of its production, in the conditions that obtain 
at the time of purchase. Or, more strictly speaking, one 
pays what it costs to produce another to take the place of 
the one sold. Speaking generally, competition among sell- 
ers prevents extended necessity for one's paying more than 
this, and bankruptcy of an individual seller prevents ex- 
tended opportunity for one's paying less. 

There is, however, one commodity that is the possession 
of every laborer, that is not a tangible object, that is not 
stored away upon shelves or in warehouses; yet it has a 
distinctive existence and ranks in importance far above any 
other. It is to the discussion of this commodity that all 
that has been previously said is introductory. That com- 
modity we call labor-power,* or the physical strength, 



*"The capitalist epoch is therefore characterized by this, that 
labor-power takes in the eyes of the laborer himself the form of a 
commodity which is his property; his labor consequently becomes 
wage labor. On the other hand, it is only from this moment that 
the produce of labor universally becomes a commodity." Marx: 
"Capital," page 149. \^ 



THE TWO DOLLARS' WORTH 17 

mental capacity and manual skill necessary to produce things 
— to work in the industries. 

This commodity, like any other, is brought to the market 
by its owner who cannot consume it and offered in exchange 
for some other commodity that he can consume. It is 
bought by some one who desires it for consumption and 
who exchanges for it a commodity that he cannot consume. 

What is paid for this commodity by its purchaser? Just 
what is paid for any other commodity ; as we have already 
seen, the cost of its production, or, more strictly speaking, 
the cost of its reproduction, in the conditions that 
prevail wherein it is reproduced.* In other words, the pur- 
chaser (employer) must pay the seller (laborer) a wage that 
will purchase for him whatever is necessary for his subsist- 
ence — for his replacement by at least one other laborer when 
his productive career has ended. 

What then is the minimum of commodities that must 
average to fall to the lot of every man? What is this "sub- 
sistence" ? 

Sufficient must go to each, through the labor of the 
"bread winner" or "bread winners" of his family,** to pro- 
vide food, clothing and shelter for a man and a woman and 
to enable them to rear to manhood and womanhood at least 
two children ; and, of course, more than two, if there is to 



*"The value of labor-power is determined, as in the case of any 
other commodity, by the labor-time necessary for the production, 
and consequently also for the reproduction of this special article," 
Marx: "Capital," page 149. 

The reader will observe that Marx uses the term "labor-time" 
and not "cost." In "Capital" he demonstrates that commodities that 
are produced by equal labor-times, that is by equal numbers of hours 
of labor (all kinds of labor being reduced to a common denomina- 
tion — unskilled, simple labor) averages, in like conditions, to have 
equal exchange value. But his philosophy is too elaborate to here 
unfold and we shall, therefore, adhere to the common and simple, 
though less exact term "cost." 

**"The world over, when it becomes necessary for the wife or 



18 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

be an increase in population. A bachelor or a childless home, 
therefore, represents a deficit. Somebody must make up 
the deficiency, for certain it is this average must be main- 
tained. Rearing to manhood and womanhood implies all 
expenses incident to training for life whether that training 
be moral, mental or physical ; and it must be such training 
as is, on the average, required to meet the conditions im- 
posed at the time and in the country where the children are 
reared. These constitute the minimum average require- 
ments of every man, and the expense they impose is the 
minimum average wage of the worker. 

In short, a wage-worker comes to market with a com- 
modity, labor-power, and exchanges it for other commod- 
ities that are its equivalent. And he cannot realize through 
this exchange more than the equivalent any more than can 
a farmer realize for his corn other commodities of greater 
value than that which he offers in exchange. The commod- 
ities exchanged are equivalents because the cost of pro- 
duction of the one is equal to that of the other. The cost 
of producing labor-power is the cost of producing the com- 
modities that constitute the subsistence of the laborer. 
More than this subsistence, then, the laborer cannot average 
to command,* any more than can a seller of anything else 



wife and children, to work in factories, it very soon becomes neces- 
sary for them to do so to support the family. The wages of the 
head of the family and the earnings of the entire family as before 
just maintain the standard of comfort among that class of the 
population. Professor E. W. Bemis has called attention to the fact 
that in the textile industries of Rhode Island and eastern Connecti- 
cut, where the women and children work, the earnings of the entire 
family are no greater than in other industries, like those in metal, in 
western Connecticut, where only the man works." Ely: "Political 
Economy," page 221. 

*The value of a man is, as of all other things, his price — that 
is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power." Th. 
Hobbes, quoted by Marx: "Capital," page 140. 

"It has been the opinion of many of the ablest politcal econom- 
ists for over a century that what is technically called standard of 



THE TWO DOLLARS' WORTH 19 

average to get "more than it is worth." In the capitalist 
system, therefore, the wage-workers, the real producers, 
the mass of humanity whose labor is exploited through the 
process of production, cannot, on the average, command a 
wage that provides more than such a subsistence as will 
supply the general labor market with laborers of requisite 
efficiency. 

And it is this wage that the $2 worth pays; it is this 
subsistence that the $2 worth supplies. 

The commodities that constitute this subsistence the 
laborer, under our assumption, produces in one-fifth of his 
average day's work. 

This one-fifth part of the sum total of labor is what is 
known in Socialist philosophy as "necessary-labor" and it 
comprehended every form of actual and necessary labor. 
The rest of that sum total, we characterize as "surplus- 
labor" and its product as "surplus-product" — "surplus- 
value." 

It follows, therefore, that all except the necessary labor- 
ers must subsist upon this surplus-product of labor; and 
since the mass of humanity that thus subsists are in no way 
essential to production, they are essentially parasitic. And 
such is the capitalist system of production that this mass 
regularly appropriates about four-fifths of labor's product. 

Nor can the laborer's share of his product long vary 



life, or standard of comfort, determines the wages of labor. This 
means that laborers have an habitual standard of life, a certain style 
of life, and that what they receive as wages enables them on the 
average just to keep up this standard, but to do no more. They are 
able to occupy such sort of dwelling, or wear such clothes, to eat 
such food, and generally to do such things as this standard requires, 

but no more There is so overwhelming an array of 

facts, gathered from widely separated countries and from periods so 
distant from one another, which confirm this conclusion, that it is 
difficult to resist it." — Professor Richard T. Ely (University of Wis- 
consin) : "Political Economy," page 221. 



20 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

materially from this subsistence wage. Like the seller of 
any other commodity, the owner of labor-power finds that 
competition from other sellers (laborers) will prevent its 
extended sale above the cost of production. And as bank- 
ruptcy awaits him who long protracts the sale of other com- 
modities below the production cost, so degeneracy, bank- 
ruptcy of labor-power, awaits the laborer who must long 
part with his power below its cost of production. 



IV. 

THE EIGHT DOLLARS' WORTH 

We have now followed the $2 worth of labor's product 
on its mission and learned its sole function. It pays for the 
subsistence of the laborer — for the reproduction of labor- 
power. It is the equivalent of the product of the laborer's 
first two hours' work of each day and is by him consumed. 
Except as it reappears in the form of labor-power, it be- 
comes as if it never had been. 

The rest of his day's product, the surplus part that we 
represent by the $8 worth, has a very different work to 
perform. 

Since $10 worth represents the entire product — the 
entire supply of produce — it, of course, represents the limit 
of the nation's average daily power to meet the requirements 
of the people. Every payment made, no matter by whom 
nor when nor where, must be made from it. We cannot 
speak into existence means of payment. If payment is 
made, the means for its making — the possibility of making 
it — lies in the products of labor of this or of past years. 
Commodities must be produced before they can be ex- 
changed and consumed. The suspension of their produc- 



THE EIGHT DOLLARS WORTH 21 

tion would necessarily destroy all means for meeting obliga- 
tions. And since the $2 worth supplies only the living of 
the laborer, it follows that the $8 worth must average to 
meet every other demand of the nation. 

Out of this $8 worth, then, has been builded the railways, 
business blocks, factories, highways and mansions of the 
nation. Out of it is paid all dividends, interest, profit and 
rent. It supports tens of thousands of wholesale and retail 
establishments that an economical organization of business 
and industry would render useless. It sustains every 
wealthy idler in luxury and pays the princely salary of many 
a useless functionary. It builds every pleasure yacht and 
pays the price of every purchased prince. It is the source 
of all the millions squandered in the degrading practices of 
mammon's aristocracy. It builds every battleship, equips 
every battalion and speeds them to their work of destruc- 
tion. It furnishes the blood and sinew of an industrial 
tyranny more menacing, more powerful than was ever that 
of priest or potentate. It buys legislatures, congresses and 
councils. It crowns the political boss and baffles every effort 
to establish a rule of righteousness. It taints pulpits and 
tyrannizes over our institutions of learning. And every 
cent of it is extracted from labor's product through the sys- 
tem of industry known as capitalism. 

Strange, is it not, that such a system of exploitation 
could long be continued in a community that lays claim to 
being civilized ? Evidently it is the method of its doing that 
makes it at all possible; and it is this method that now de- 
mands attention. 

There are two modes for levying a tax upon a people — 
the direct and the indirect. A direct tax is levied by a 
legally constituted body as a certain per cent of the assessed 
valuation of all property within the territory whose people 
create that body. These assessments are levied upon all the 



22 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

property of a State by a State Board or Commission regu- 
larly authorized to make such levy; and funds so collected 
are used for defraying the expenses of conducting the state's 
affairs and for maintaining its institutions such as schools, 
universities, asylums, penitentiaries, militia, etc. A County 
Commission, variously designated in different states, levies a 
similar tax upon all assessed valuations in a county for de- 
fraying the county's expenses; a city council levies in like 
manner upon city property. 

This tax, as we see, has solely a property basis, and as 
soon as it has been determined, every one who must con- 
tribute to its payment knows the exact amount of his contri- 
bution. And more than this, and a matter concerning 
which Mr. Taxpayer is very critical and exacting, he knows 
just for what that money is to be used. He demands an 
itemized statement of all receipts and expenditures and that 
this statement shall, at all times, be open for public inspec- 
tion. He has auditors, experts and grand juries appointed 
to see that nothing is concealed, that all funds are used for 
the purposes for which the tax was levied. He must know 
before making payment just what his money is paid for 
and he demands the subsequent history of every dollar that 
leaves his purse. 

An indirect tax is such as duties on imports, internal rev- 
enue such as is levied upon tobacco, alcoholic beverages, or 
other articles of internal commerce. One may pay it or not, 
as he determines to use or not use the articles upon which 
it is levied. It is collected at no definite period and the 
great mass of its payers each contribute but from a fraction 
of a cent to a few cents at a time. Millions of them do not 
realize or even know that they are being taxed at all. 

This is the sort of tax that supports in largest measure 
all national governments and that of our own country en- 
tirely. It is the sort of levy that creates least friction, meets 



THE EIGHT DOLLARS' WORTH 23 

least opposition and is most easily collected. It is incon- 
spicuous, and usually popular with the ruling (owning) 
class. 

A casual survey of the system of exploiting the produc- 
tive labor of our country reveals that that system is closely 
allied to the indirect method of taxation. So thoroughly 
concealed is the whole process of extraction of that greater 
fraction of labor's product that, though it has gone on for 
many decades in ever increasing volume, the mass of labor- 
ing humanity are still ignorant of its nature or extent or 
even of its existence. They fail entirely in realization of 
what they are indirectly paying; they fail even to realize 
that they pay at all. A great statesman is quoted as saying 
to his parliament, in substance, that by indirect methods, the 
nation could be taxed into poverty in two years and rela- 
tively little opposition would be engendered; but if equal 
sums were collected by direct methods, six months would 
produce a revolution. Is this more surprising than the fact 
that American labor is, by indirect nfethods, "taxed" into 
slavery even of women and children and yet millions refuse 
so much as to investigate the process ? 

For the purpose of expanding the thought in the preced- 
ing paragraph, or of putting it in more concrete form, let us 
assume that the exploitation of labor were attempted by 
direct methods. In that case, all productive laborers must 
average to be paid, say, at the end of each month, the full 
$10 per day, and the exploiters must proceed to assess them 
directly for payments that are now made from the products 
of labor's creation. 

In such a system the laborer would, of course, be called 
upon to part with what had actually come into his posses- 
sion — to pay cash directly from his own pocket. Like the 
man called upon to pay a direct tax, he would at once be- 
come inquisitive regarding the disposition of his contribu- 



24 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

tions. He would call for an itemized statement of receipts 
and expenditures. 

The exploiters, like a state, county or city commission, 
must determine in advance for just what purpose an assess- 
ment must be made, and then levy upon the laborers to foot 
the bills. Let us take at least a cursory view of the work- 
ings of such an arrangement. 

A levy of many millions must be made for the construc- 
tion and maintenance of educational institutions of every 
required degree ; for hospitals, asylums, homes for the help- 
less, museums, gymnasiums, theaters and all such necessary 
public institutions. Such a levy would, of course, meet with 
universal approbation. 

The second list of items might concern transportation. 
It would contain a call for many needed millions for exten- 
sions, for maintenance and for repairs. Then follows the 
demand for hundreds of millions for dividends on funded 
debts and on stocks. Of course two-thirds of this funded 
debt and stock represents absolutely nothing but the vote of 
a board of directors and a few hours' run of a printing press ; 
and the other third, representing the actual cost of the road, 
was assessed from labor during years that are gone. That 
is immaterial (so might argue the levying board) ; we ex- 
ploiters must have this levy. These dividends constitute our 
private property and are therefore ours by sacred right. 
We have a right to interest on our former assessments (our 
accumulations through industry and thrift), and as for the 
water, to reject that would be barbarous. A large part of it 
(but never a controlling interest) has been sold to innocent 
(or ignorant) purchasers among whom are widows and 
orphans. Be reasonable and generous. Put up the cash. 
Pay like men. You know we must learn to live and let live. 

Then there follows another item in the railroad list. It 
is for a few millions that are necessary for conducting, in 



THE EIGHT DOLLARS' WORTH 25 

up to date form, political conventions and campaigns; for 
the installation through the medium of our bosses, news- 
papers and orators of a proper and patriotic spirit. We 
must send into office only men who will conserve the best 
interests of the people and this is generally very expensive. 
City councils, legislatures and congresses must be looked 
after in detail and they are also an enormous and constantly 
augmenting draft upon our revenues. They must all live 
and you must let live. Pay up. 

Again, under the various headings for running such in- 
dustries as railroads, oil, steel, coal, etc., we would find as- 
sessments sufficient to pay a princely salary to a president 
who has not for years been at the company's chief place of 
business. But his salary and his annual millions that now 
soar almost to the hundred mark must be paid. It is very 
necessary that he dispense a few millions as a philanthropist 
by way of building libraries or making donations to institu- 
tions of learning. All this is essential to the people's wel- 
fare. The levy must stand. Pay up. 

Other items would call for such small matters as prob- 
ably from $80,000 to $100,000 per year each for the main- 
tenance and support of some delectable personages like 
Harry K. Thaw; for an annual expenditure of half a mil- 
lion on a De Castellane or a De Sagan, and a like sum for 
the support of each one of a score or more other such dis- 
tinguished Europeans. And this would be followed by a 
call for a round number of millions for the year-round enter- 
tainment of a "smart-set" including their balls, theaters, sup- 
pers, multiple residences, dog teas, monkey dinners, free 
love, debaucheries and divorces. But all these "blessings" 
are of the regular order. You must pay. 

Then a United States senator, or one of the chief makers 
of such an important functionary, wants a foreign dude for 
his daughter. They come a little high, but their possesssion 



8(3 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

will remove much of wha?t would otherwise be a future nec- 
essity for the employment of expensive experts to trace 
genealogies through lines that lead to titled ancestry and to 
the consequent right to the coat of arms of some foreign 
and probably defunct line of degenerates. Furthermore, 
these made-to-order pedigrees are always open to suspicion 
on the part of the vulgar minded. We must graft upon this 
American tree the real, unquestionable buds of royalty. 
From $5,000,000 to $20,000,000 each will buy them. Pay up. 

But here is a very lengthy list of items that relate to 
matters nearer home. In amounts designated, its millions 
are staggering, but they must be met. In one block down 
town there are nearly a dozen drygoods stores, each almost 
an exact duplicate of the others even in detail. Each has 
its business manager, its departmental heads and clerks, its 
coterie of delivery rigs or boys. The fact that two or more 
of these deliveries must often speed to the same home at the 
same time with various little bundles of an ounce or more 
in weight, does not, in this system, reduce necessity for their 
duplication. Each of these establishments must meet its big 
bills for rent, taxes, license, etc., and, in addition, yield a 
round profit to the owners. These establishments must all 
be sustained in order that goods may be retailed — may be 
passed to a consumer ; and the fact that if business organ- 
ization were substituted for industrial anarchy, it would 
remove, by elimination of the useless and parasitic, at least 
three-fourths of this entire expense, cannot be urged. This 
is the system of doing business ; these firms are all engaged 
in it and must be supported. And the same line of argu- 
ment holds with equal force for all other lines of retailing, 
whether it be hardware, medicine, groceries or grog. The 
system demands it ; the items must stand. Pay up. 

This partial list suffices to illustrate the nature and some- 
thing of the extent of the assessments that, in this hypothet- 



THE EIGHT DOLLARS' WORTH 27 

ical system, it would be necessary to levy upon productive 
labor. But especial emphasis must here be placed upon the 
fact that when these assessment lists had all been compiled 
and paid, there would still remain in the pocket of the 
laborer just what he now gets as a wage. Such a system 
would not cost him one cent more than does the present sys- 
tem that he thinks is good enough for him ; for, as is self- 
evident, he would, in that system, pay the identical bills that 
his labor now pays. 

He works a day and averages to produce what retails at 
$10. He is paid a wage that will buy in the markets one- 
fifth of what he produces, because his subsistence requires 
that much. He sells his commodity, labor-power, and re- 
ceives its equivalent in other commodities. There are $8 
worth of his product left, and, certain it is, that $8 must pay 
all else that is paid, for, outside of what he, himself, con- 
sumes, there is nothing else from which payment can be 
made. 

Again, if the laborer is at all enlightened in economics, 
he at once discerns that the manner of the exploiters' divid- 
ing this $8 among themselves is not at all a concern of his. 
He gets out of his labor the cost of reproducing his labor- 
power. That cost, on the average, determines the market 
price of his commodity, and more than that cannot average 
to come to him. The $8 can no more, in the present system 
of industry, be his than can the planet Jupiter. Its distrib- 
ution among those who live upon it is a matter foreign to 
his interests. What does concern him is, first, that the 
surplus-product exists and that its sole function is to feed 
parasites ; and, second, what must be done to obviate all ne- 
cessity for supplying the wants of this industrially useless 
horde of humanity; or in other words, what is the best 
method of doing away with the system of industry that ex- 
ploits labor. Nor in the long run, does the matter of prices 



28 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

concern him. If they rise or fall the change may tem- 
porarily affect him advantageously or otherwise ; but a cor- 
responding change must soon occur in his wage, for his fifth 
he must have and assuredly he will get no more. An ar- 
rangement that would deal out to him his actual fifth, in- 
stead of the money necessary to buy it, would remove 
directly his interest in the matter of prices. Then the capi- 
talist class would be left to fight out the matter of dividing 
the $8, and the producer of it could view the battle as he 
might any other passing show. This condition obtains be- 
cause, as is obvious, he is exploited entirely through produc- 
tion and not through consumption, And HE, let us not 
forget, means every laborer necessary, in any field whatso- 
ever, for the carrying on of industry. The universal test 
of usefulness for each individual in our industries is, would 
a thoroughly organized system demand his labor (or that of 
any other laborer) in the field of his present activity? If 
so, he is a necessary and consequently a productive laborer- 
Let us return to the consideration of our hypothetical 
plan of paying the productive laborers the full $10 and then 
assessing them directly for just what they now pay through 
indirect methods. 

Not a very exalted flight of imagination is required to 
picture labor's consternation at the first presentation of the 
itemized levy-lists. There would certainly be a scene that 
would fill the stage of our nation such as man has never yet 
witnessed. The capitalist system of exploiting labor, backed 
as it is by political bosses, organizations and machines; by 
press, pulpit and university; by legal precedent and talent 
and the customs and teachings of ages ; by armies and navies 
and all the powers of concentrated wealth, would last about 
thirty days, would end with the first pay-day. And why? 
Solely because the injustice, the hideousness of the thing 
would, at one stroke, be laid bare in such manner as to be 



THE EIGHT DOLLARS' WORTH 29 

easily discernible even by the most dull of comprehension. 
Before the blue pencil of the mass of productive laborers 
were half through with that list, a revolution would be 
wrought; the capitalist system of industry would terminate 
and Socialism would be established. 

And yet labor today is monthly meeting every require- 
ment of that obnoxious list without an intelligent protest. 
It stands ready to denounce the "agitator" who so much as 
proposes its formal discussion as one ambitious only "to 
make us divide up"; as a breeder of "dissension in our 
organization"; as a "violator of the principles of law and 
order"; as "an undesirable citizen." The only inference 
that can be drawn from such deportment is that labor is not 
enlightened. But it does not follow that it is incapable of 
enlightenment, for we have seen how quickly a comprehen- 
sion of things as they really are could be awakened by let- 
ting what is now exploited from its toil once actually come 
into its possession. A knowledge of actual conditions it is 
gradually gaining. Once gained, that knowledge is an 
eternal, soul-inspiring possession, a fountain of faith that 
scoffs at the tempter — that all the powers of hell cannot 
shake. 



V. 

THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 

The earth itself, in its natural state, is the original source 
of the substances out of which all material wealth must 
spring, the source of all that sustains life, all that makes 
life possible. On nature's produce ready made, and totally 
uninfluenced by any act of man, all life for ages subsisted 
and developed. It was in nature alone that there was de- 



30 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

veloped, and for tens of thousands of years sustained, a 
race of beings potentially all that man has since become. 

But nature unaided by human ingenuity and skill could 
not develop the race of today nor sustain it for but a few- 
hours. To develop beyond the lowest stage of savagery, it 
was necessary for man to discover and turn to his utility one 
or more of the special properties of matter. He must dis- 
cover some natural force, and more, he must learn how to 
accumulate that force and direct it. He learned to throw 
stones, use fire, make and use the bow-and-arrow, bake 
pottery, domesticate animals, plant grain, smelt bronze and 
then iron, build wind-mills and dam rivers, construct steam 
engines, railways, telegraph lines and dynamos. In other 
words, he discovered and enslaved the forces of muscular 
contraction, chemical affinity, gravitation, expanding vapor, 
and electric attraction and repulsion. With each new dis- 
covery, each invention, he but increased his productive 
power, but found a means for making old earth yield more 
of life's sustenance and consequently paved the way to a 
higher and better manhood. 

Today our life energy is very largely expended in the 
application of machinery to natural products. Our ma- 
chines, factories, oil refineries, steel plants, railroads, etc., 
are but artificial means for forcing nature to yield or give 
up more abundantly her life-sustaining things. 

It is not because we are civilized that we possess these 
things. On the contrary, we are civilized because we pos- 
sess them. The first tribe that used the bow-and-arrow did 
not possess it because they were conquerors; but they be- 
came conquerors because of its possession. Man has ad- 
vanced just as he has learned to enslave nature's forces, but 
the advancement followed the enslaving — was a consequence 
of it. 

Each new discovery or invention gave added impetus to 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 31 

his effort to sustain himself, to get food, clothing and shelter, 
to accumulate needful things. Each called for an additional 
vocabulary, new lines of activity and, as a consequence of 
these, a broadening and deepening of thought. Each sup- 
plied the basis for the establishment of a new concept (and 
a new fact) of relations between men and between tribes or 
nations, and these new relations rapidly remodeled ideas of 
what is commonly called right and wrong. When the de- 
velopment of agriculture made a captive neighbor worth 
more as a slave than as roast meat, the great wrong of roast- 
ing him was a very natural deduction. But that conclusion 
was not drawn from any thing else that man ever did or 
taught, or from any inspiration ever given him during all 
the thousands of years of his previous labor, philosophings 
and forming of ethical codes. When the capitalist system 
of industry had so far developed that competition among 
sellers of labor-power made that commodity cheaper than 
possessing its owner, when wage-labor became a source of 
greater profit than slave-labor or serf-labor, the conception 
of the great wrongs of previous systems found easy access 
into the minds of men. But there was not room in all 
man's previous moral codes for even one paragraph argu- 
ing as right every man's privilege of free contract. When 
the present capitalist system of exploiting productive labor 
shall have developed in the minds of that labor a realization 
of what the thing really is; when toilers shall have learned 
that "no wage can ever be a just reward for a day's work" ; 
when the fact that "to the producer should belong that 
which is produced" shall have gained ascendency; then the 
relations of men and the modes of conducting affairs that 
are now sanctioned by custom, precedent, law, moral code 
and organized force will appear in all their hideousness. A 
new standard of ethics will be established and the world 



32 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

will move forward impelled by its own force-enslaving 
devices. 

The one circumstance to which all others are subordinate 
that will compel the revolutionary movement preliminary to 
another advance is the rapid and, in this system, necessary 
concentration of wealth under ownership and sway of a few 
of our citizens. 

The consequences of this condition cannot be overesti- 
mated. Our nation's wealth is rapidly flowing to the few 
and all the restraining forces that capitalism can conjure up 
are impotent to stop it. A Roosevelt may preach regula- 
tion, a Hearst may plead for a revised penal code, preachers 
may pray for a righteous stewardship, and a Bryan hold 
seances with the spirits of the past. It matters not. Con- 
centration goes on and would go on even though it were pos- 
sible (as it is not) to enact all of their demands into law. 
Concentration is an effect and its cause is too apparent to 
admit of serious disputation. 

Our factories, mines, oil works, steel plants, railroads, 
etc., are the institutions that make possible our tremendous 
production, that make possible the sustenance of many, 
many times the people that this land sustained when the 
white race first invaded it. These are the mediums through 
which production is accomplished. These, in the language 
of the laborer, are the jobs of the nation and producing hu- 
manity can live only by working in these jobs. 

The average production from each job is far in excess of 
the portion of the product that falls to him who works there- 
in. The surplus-product goes to the job owner. This 
surplus-product being in present conditions, far in excess 
of what the job-owner can consume, accumulation must 
result. And that accumulation must be proportional to the 
number and productive efficiency of the jobs owned. The 
job is the medium through which the worker is exploited 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 33 

and the nation's wealth is drifting into the hands of the 
exploiters. 

Again, the results of this job-exploitation are accumula- 
tive. The more jobs a man owns, the more he must con- 
tinue to acquire ; or, in other words, the more of the sources 
of subsistence a man owns, the more these sources must fall 
to his ownership — the more he must buy. To illustrate, sup- 
pose a man has property that yields an annual income of 
$25,000,000. If we reckon this as 10 per cent of its valua- 
tion, he owns $250,000,000 worth of the nation's sources of 
subsistence. His gain of $25,000,000 he invests in other of 
these profit yielding concerns. His ownership is now $275,- 
000,000 and his next annual gain is $27,500,000. He again 
invests and then owns $302,500,000 of the things in which 
laborers must work in order to live. His next gain is $30,- 
250,000 and his consequent ownership after investing is 
$332,750,000, and so on year after year. 

Is this the way of the business world? Is this what 
actually takes place? Mr. Andrew Carnegie in World's 
Work for December, 1908, (See also Literary Digest De- 
cember 12, 1908), answers this question. After citing some 
interesting points in the contrast between the lives of rich 
and poor, he says : 

"It is one of the saddest and most indefensible of all 
contrasts presented in life; but when we proceed to trace 
the work of wealth as a whole, it is soon found that even 
these extravangances absorb but a small fraction of it. (The 
millionaire's wealth.) The millionaire's funds are all at 
work; only a small sum lies in bank subject to check. Our 
railways and steamships, mills and furnaces, industrial 
structures, and much of the needed working capital to keep 
them in operation, are the result of invested wealth. The 
millionaire with two ($10,000,000), and the new multi-mil- 
lionaire with twenty millions sterlbg ($100,000,000) keep 



34 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

only trifling sums lying idle. All else they put to work, much 
of it employing labor. They cannot escape this unless they 
turn miser and keep the gold to gloat over, which no rich 
man does whom the writer knows or has heard of. On the 
contrary, the millionaire as a rule is both mindful and 
shrewd, more apt than those of smaller fortune to invest his 
capital carefully." 

In the same periodicals above cited, Mr. John D. Rocke- 
feller assures us that the big fortune is kept "universally 
diffused in the sense that it is kept invested and it passes 
into the pay envelop week by week." 

It passes into the pay envelop and we have already seen 
something of the augmented form in which it returns, again 
to go forth for still further augmentation and reinvestment. 

This procedure has gone on until today one man, in all 
probability, owns of our national resources and means of 
production what it would require at least a billion dollars 
to buy. His annual returns mount to near the hundred mil- 
lion mark ; and these vast sums he uses each year to acquire 
possession of more of our sources of subsistence, to still 
further augment his gains and, consequently, the necessity 
for continuance of his purchases. In his quest for some- 
thing in which to invest his gains, he has drifted from oil 
into steel, railways, coal, banking, farm mortgages, sky- 
scrapers, hotels, street car lines, mines of every metal and no 
telling what else. And he is all powerful in every line. 

And here another point is worthy of note. The indus- 
trial concerns owned by our few immensely wealthy citizens 
are those of greatest efficiency — the big concerns with every 
possible device for multiplying the productivity of labor. For 
instance, by consulting pages 10 and 11 of Bulletin 57 of the 
U. S. Census of Manufactures for 1905, we learn that, of 
the millions of laborers therein considered, 71.6% are em- 
ployed in but 11.2% of the establishments and produce 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 35 

79.3% of the entire product. The remaining 28.4% of the 
laborers, employed in small concerns, produce but 20.7% 
of the product. In other words, while a laborer in a small 
concern is producing $72.88 worth of commodities, his 
neighbor in a big establishment produces $110.75 worth. 
That is, labor in the larger, better equipped concerns is a 
little more than one-half more productive than that in the 
small ones. The big industrial institutions are the mediums 
of greatest surplus-product, the exploiters of greatest effi- 
ciency, the channels through which flows the wealth of the 
nation to the few who own them. 

One of our greatest statisticians (Dr. Charles B. Spahr) 
tells us that already 1% of our people own 55% of our na- 
tional wealth and that 50% own nothing. Whether these 
figures be exact or not is of but little moment. We know 
that during the last sixty years the great machines and fac- 
tories have been installed, multiplying many times the pro- 
ductiveness of millions of toilers; that during the same 
period our number of millionaires have multiplied two hun- 
dred times ; and that the richest now has at least one hun- 
dred and forty times the wealth of the richest of six decades 
ago.* We know that billions in dividends have been flowing 
and must continue to flow to the few as long as this exploit- 
ing system of industry shall exist; and that the annual in- 
vestment of those billions must put under the sway of the 
investors the sources of subsistence of our people. 

A day's productive labor produces what retails at $10 ; 



* John Spargo (in "Socialism," page 119) quotes the New York 
"Sun" as authority for a tabulated statement showing that in 1855 
there were but 28 millionaires in the United States. We now have 
betwen 5,000 and 6,000. Ten years earlier, in 1845, a pamphlet dis- 
cussing the rich men of that day, named but seven men as the 
millionaires of our country; and the richest of these, Stephen 
Girard, held but $7,000,000 worth of property — a fortune less than 
the monthly income of the richest of today. 



36 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

productive labor gets $2 for doing the work. Out of the 
remaining $8 the possessions of the billionaires are builded 
— it is the only possible source of their creation. 

The slave labor of Rome or the serf labor of mediaeval 
Europe did not directly make billionaires of masters.* The 
ancient slave, like the modern wage-worker, had first to pro- 
duce his own subsistence, had to produce the things neces- 
sary for his reproduction and increase in numbers. That 
part of his product must of necessity go to him. What was 
left went to the master. The crude methods of industry, the 
total lack of machinery would leave a surplus of probably 
a few cents upon which his exploiting owner might fairly 
thrive; but, evidently the old worker could not become a 
direct source of great w r ealth. It required modern skill, 
modern machinery, modern methods and the modern system 
of slavery to furnish the requisite for the building of the 
billionaire. Whether the exploiters of today get $8 out 



*The amassing of tremendous fortunes did its deadly work for 
old Rome as well as for the other nations that have been but are 
not. When Rome rotted most rapidly, about i,8oo men practically 
owned the nation. The sources of these great acquisitions were two- 
fold : the stealing of the public domain under a corrupt patrician 
rule; and the plundering of foreign provinces at the hands of 
Roman governors. 

When Caesar was assigned the province of Spain, before leav- 
ing Rome he was so set upon by his creditors that his friend, 
Crassus, the richest man in the city, found it necessary to stand 
sponsor for him to the extent of $5,000,000. But when he was ready 
to leave Spain, his term as governor having expired, though he 
was pronounced one of the most just and moderate of rulers, Plu- 
tarch says : "This conduct made him leave his province with a 
fair reputation; being rich himself and having enriched his soldiers." 
"He hath brought many captives home to Rome 
Whose ransom did the general coffers fill." 
Probably so, but certainly his own tills were not neglected. Our 
own millionaires find it good policy to occasionally contribute a 
moiety of their plunder to "public benefactions." 

We must not, however, overlook the indirect manner in which 
Roman slave labor contributed to this fortune building. These 
slaves did the work of the nation and thus made possible the vast 
aimies for foreign conquest. 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 37 

of each $10, or less, or more, is of minor concern in face 
of the great fact that out of their share, through its constant 
investment in our sources of life, they are absorbing our 
nation's wealth and building fortunes at a rate and of such 
magnitude as surpasses even the dream of a Midas. 

John Stuart Mill reminds us that all of man's inventive 
genius and all his installation of "labor-saving" devices have 
not lightened the burden of toil for the worker. How could 
they lighten it in a system such as has always prevailed? 
Labor-power is a commodity and in its exchange for other 
commodities can never realize more than the commodities 
necessary to be consumed in order to reproduce that labor- 
power. If labor can produce the requisite commodities in 
two hours, then it gets the returns from two hours' labor, 
and its exploiters get the rest. If by aid of machinery and 
generally improved means of production, labor could pro- 
duce the equivalent of its commodity — could produce its sub- 
sistence — in half an hour, it would get the product of half 
an hour and no more. If it took the old slave nine hours of 
each ten to produce his kind, nine-tenths of his labor-product 
had to go to him in order that he live and produce more 
slaves ; then there was left for the master but one-tenth of 
the results of relatively very inefficient labor. That is why 
the old master could not build billions by simply exploiting 
the slave; and, likewise, that is why the contemporaries of 
George Washington could not do so in their day from the 
wage-labor of the colonists. But today the machine is at 
work; the productiveness of labor is multiplied beyond the 
wildest imaginings of our ancestors and the possessions of 
the few are augmented in like degree. The nation goes to 
the few as naturally as water seeks its level. 

Thomas W. Lawson has told us that it is a mere matter 
of arithmetic to compute the time when a dozen men will 
own all of this nation that is worth owning. That does not 



o8 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

mean, neighbor, that this dozen will own your little store or 
business or industry. No, if those fellows ever want to own 
a store in your little burg, they will have no use for yours, 
nor will you have any use for it either. He means that they 
will own the sources of subsistence of the nation, the great 
mediums through which labor is exploited, all the things 
such as they now own, and from whose returns they are 
so rapidly absorbing the little that is left. 

We are now ready to consider the nature of the fight 
between the "big capitalists" and the "little ones." There 
are two parts to labor's product. First, the part that goes 
to labor and is consumed by labor. This, of course, the ex- 
ploiters cannot have ; that is, they must pay a wage that will 
purchase labor's part in the market. We have assumed it to 
be $2 (or $2 worth of commodities). Second, the part that 
goes to the exploiters and that we call $8 (or $8 worth of 
commodities). This is the exploiters' exclusive share — the 
part for which they have to render no equivalent to any one. 
As long as laborers must sell their labor-power as a com- 
modity — as long as the labor-exploiting system is in vogue — 
it is evident that none of the $8 worth can ever go to labor. 
But it must be observed that the $8 worth is all that can go 
to the exploiters how T ever numerous they may be. They 
must all live from it as there is nothing else upon which 
they could live. Then it logically follows that the less of 
them there are, or the more of them that are removed from 
necessity of sharing that $8 worth, the more there is left 
for those remaining. 

Those that are driven from among the exploiters — elim- 
inated by the concentrating processes of production and ex- 
change — must of necessity join the ranks of the workers. 
This tens of thousands have already learned from experi- 
ence who were once independent producers, owning the tools 
with which they w r orked, or employers of at most a few 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 39 

hand-workers or workers with small machines, and with 
whom the employer labored side by side. They (or their 
descendants) are now among the army of employed in the 
great factories, or the other army upon the highway. "But 
theirs is another story" that will be told in its proper 
sequence. 

"But," says one who has not fully thought out this mat- 
ter, "the merchant is one of the exploiters and a large part 
of his profits are derived from sale of goods to laborers. 
Does not he get a large share of the laborer's $2 worth? 
Does not the laborer buy of him and he make profit on what 
he sells ? How does the $8 worth support him ? 

Here is wherein many are deceived by appearances. 
The author has heard many men, otherwise well informed, 
assert that the labor unions should center their fight against 
the all too numerous merchants who, through necessity for 
high profits, rob laborers of their earnings — "they should 
fight those who take their money, not those who pay it 
to them/' 

Such argument comes from persons whose observations 
have penetrated far enough into the capitalist system of in- 
dustry to learn that the great mass of duplicated institutions 
called stores represents a tremendous waste ; and they 
imagine that if the major portion of these things could be 
done away with, prices of living could be greatly reduced 
and consequently labor's wages would buy much more than 
now. In other words, such a reform would raise the actual 
wage — purchasing power — though the nominal wage re- 
mained unchanged. But no such condition could obtain. 
These persons have never thought of labor-power in its true 
light, as merely a commodity, or they would know that if 
the prices of all other commodities were to fall from the 
removal of a lot of useless stores or from any other cause, 
the price of the commodity labor-power must also fall in 



40 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

like degree. They have never conceived the fact that it is a 
certain part of labor's product that must go to the laborer, 
and if he can buy that part — his subsistence — for 25 cents 
per day, that 25 cents will determine his wage. They do 
not observe this fact although evidence of it is world wide 
in the ratio of prices and wages in every land. 

Granting our assumed value of a day's product, $10 worth 
(or for that matter any other amount) then it is evident that 
both the laborer and the merchant must subsist upon that 
product. If the laborer consumes but one-fifth of it, he is 
exploited out of four-fifths and no more. If the laborer (as 
he must) consumes his fifth, certainly the merchant cannot 
also consume it or any part of it. Then the part he con- 
sumes must be of the $8 worth or nothing, for there is 
nothing else for him to consume. 

As previously suggested, if the laborer were given his 
fifth of the product instead of being given money enough to 
buy it, and the other four-fifths were divided among the 
exploiters just as it now is, each would receive just what 
he now enjoys and certainly no one would then accuse the 
merchant or anyone else of exploiting the laborer through 
any process except production. The merchant is simply a 
medium through which the laborer's fifth reaches him. The 
capitalist, instead of giving the laborer his share by direct 
process, simplifies matters by giving him money sufficient to 
go and get it of the merchant; and at the same time he 
makes of the laborer a medium through whom the mer- 
chant's share — that is, sufficient money to buy his share — 
reaches the merchant. The arrangement is very convenient 
and is distinguished from that that would obtain if Social- 
ists had their way chiefly in these particulars, first, the 
merchant would not be a profit-monger but would be simply 
a necessary laborer; second, the number of such concerns 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 41 

would be probably a twentieth of what it now is and the 
expense of their maintenance reduced proportionately. 

The fight of the laborer then, in the capitalist system, is 
to maintain his standard of subsistence and to raise it if pos- 
sible — to get more of what he produces — and, when he is 
more fully enlightened, will be for the entire removal of the 
exploiter as such from the industrial field. The fight of the 
capitalist, so far as it engages the laborer, is to reduce this 
standard of labor's subsistence, or at least, to prevent its 
being augmented. But the discussion of this matter does 
not logically enter here. This contention between producers 
and exploiters is the great (economic) class struggle whose 
suggestion is so distasteful to such as Messrs. Rockefeller, 
Morgan, Carnegie and Roosevelt. 

We are here to consider the contention of the exploiters 
among themselves over the distribution of the $8 worth that 
labor produces for them. We have already seen something 
of the tremendous fraction of the nation's sources of sub- 
sistence that has already passed into the possession of a 
few, and that such accumulation is possible solely because 
of the efficiency of modern methods of production. 

Possible possession of that $8 worth that labor now 
provides for the exploiters is a very potent incentive to 
action upon their part; and it is that possession that sup- 
plies the requisite for effective action. Each of them is 
striving against all the others for the coveted prize. The 
"big capitalist" want as nearly all of it as possible. They 
have no interest in, and they have a very decided and nat- 
ural aversion to dividing it with a lot of unnecessary "small 
fry." Its possession they can secure just to the extent that 
they acquire ownership of the sources of our subsistence — 
the exploiting mediums, the instruments of production. 
These they must control and through that control gain a 
proportionate share of that $8 worth. 



42 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

Our system of industry makes possible this acquisition 
by the capitalist because it grants him the right of private 
property in our essentials to life. In fact the chief function 
of all our governmental institutions is to maintain that right 
as one of greater sanctity even than the right to life itself. 

And what is this "property right" that our governmental 
forces are organized to defend? We ordinarily think of a 
property as consisting of earth, wood, brick, stone or steel 
or a combination of these. But it is not the right to these 
that requires such an array of forces. Far from it. These 
are but a means to an end. It is the end to be accomplished 
through their possession that needs guarding. For instance, 
suppose a Harriman should tender John Doe as a gift the 
absolute ownership of any part of, or for that matter, all of 
the railways of this nation, on condition that said Doe shall 
operate them at the cost of that operation. Doe may keep 
them in the best possible condition, extend them whenever 
and wherever necessary and make of them the greatest and 
best transporting medium of the earth ; but he must not use 
them to exploit labor. What has the said Harriman prof- 
fered the said Doe ? Truly a wonderful mass of finely con- 
structed earth, wood, stone and steel ; but what is the thing 
worth to Doe? Less than nothing, for there has been con- 
ferred upon Doe a big job that would not provide him 
bread and water. What has Harriman barred in that gift? 
The property right so sacred to capitalism ; the right to use 
that mass of essential things to exploit humanity — to turn 
the toil and sweat of millions into a private bank account 
and through its reinvestment gain possession of still other 
things in which the producer must work or cease to be ; the 
right to own the sources of life of the nation as rapidly as 
millions in annual dividends can acquire them. It is this 
right and this alone that makes that mighty mass of material 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 43 

"a property." And it is the operating of industry with this 
end in view that concentrates wealth. 

Among capitalists the $8 worth is the bone of conten- 
tion. The big fellows — those backed by mighty possessions 
and millions in annual dividends — want it all. As the frac- 
tion of it that goes to them increases (as they get possession 
of the nation's resources) the smaller capitalists are neces- 
sarily crowded off the field — starved out. To this very nat- 
urally the smaller holders of wealth object ; against this they 
array their forces. They are fighting to retain a position 
among the exploiters, fighting to evade the fate of the 
laborer. 

It is this struggle among the capitalists themselves over 
the division of the $8 worth that furnishes the material for 
the maintenance of at least two and often more political 
parties. It is to the various points of contention as to what 
should constitute a proper division that the various planks 
in their platforms relate. They prate of extravagances in 
expenditure of public funds, of "square deals," of corrupt 
bossism, of incompetencies, of the sacredness of property, of 
combines, trusts and pools, of excessive capitalization, of 
excessive transportation rates, of rebates, of the domination 
by corporations, of the destruction of competition, of the 
physical valuation of railways, of return to the principles 
enunciated by our fathers, of the depredations of the preda- 
tory rich, of the relative merits of various scales or systems 
of taxation. 

A careful perusal of the planks in the various platforms 
issued by their conventions fails to reveal anything of real 
merit, or that savors of seriousness or honesty, that relates 
in any way to anything but, as has been said, contention over 
matters relating solely to the distribution of that $8 worth 
of labor's product among the capitalists themselves. And 



44 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

herein is included every party that advocates the capitalist 
system of industry, the present, labor-exploiting system — 
every party except a strictly Socialist party. 

How, then, can an intelligent laboring man center inter- 
est in that fight? Labor produces $10 worth — $2 worth and 
$8 worth. The $2 worth goes to a laborer and is consumed 
by him, and it is all that he can ever consume in the capital- 
ist system of industry. The $8 worth is taken from his 
product for consumption by the exploiters, the capitalists. 
They quarrel over the manner of its distributing, and im- 
mediately the laborers form into two or more lines, swing 
into columns, march like veterans, shout like charging heroes 
and vote like patriots in effort to aid exploiters in their dis- 
tribution of what has been so systematically filched from 
these same laborers. If a man were waylaid and robbed and 
the robbers were to get into a fight over the division of the 
spoils, it would certainly be an anomalous circumstance to 
witness his seizing a club and entering that contest to aid 
in fair or unfair distribution of that loot. Yet is that not 
in miniature what, in effect, is constantly witnessed in every 
land where labor is enfranchised? True the $8 worth is 
extracted through due process of law, through the regular 
workings of the capitalist system of industry, through a 
process more subtle and refined than any ever known to 
alembic art; but it is just as surely taken from the laborer 
as if filched by highwaymen and, barring the possible conse- 
quences of violence, is he not equally a loser, equally robbed ? 
What matters it to the millions of producers whether that 
$8 worth (which can never come to them) goes to five big 
capitalists or ten half-grown ones, as long as, in either con- 
tingency, there is for them but subsistence for ten hours' 
toil? 

To summarize, the use of machinery in modern industry 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 45 

has multiplied the productiveness of labor by tens, by hun- 
dreds, by thousands as compared with that of any former 
period of history. As in any other period labor receives, as 
reward for its toil, subsistence — enough to reproduce its 
kind. The standard of subsistence varies somewhat in dif- 
ferent places and countries but, in general, it is such as is 
necessary to qualify laborers for the work required of them. 
This increased productiveness of labor leaves a vast surplus 
for the use of the exploiters. Out of this surplus the great 
factories and all the gigantic productive enginery of today 
are constructed. These require a division of labor and a sim- 
plifying of its processes to the ultimate. Production is thus 
concentrated — socialized — and the ownership of its instru- 
ments, through necessity for annual investment of gains, 
passes inevitably into ever fewer hands. 

The concentration of wealth-possession, then, is due sole- 
ly to two circumstances, two causes : first, increased produc- 
tivity of labor; second, private or individual ownership of 
the sources of subsistence with its necessary concomitant, the 
exploitation of labor — the operation of industry for profit. 

Since there are but two causes for this concentration (this 
effect), it follows that there are but two methods for pre- 
venting it. First, decrease the productivity of labor. This 
could be accomplished by destroying machinery and prohibit- 
ing its use in industry. We are told that this is the course 
pursued by the Chinese ages ago ; and to that policy they still 
adhere, except when dissuaded by the arguments of the 
enginery of modern (and foreign) Avar fare. Second, we 
must abolish the right of private ownership in our resources 
— in the instruments of production — in the things used collec- 
tively in industry. Or, in other words, we must abolish the 
right to exploit the productive labor of the nation. Private 
ownership, as has previously been shown, without exploita- 



46 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

tion, without profit, is a self-evident absurdity — an impos- 
sibility. 

Of the first, or Chinese solution of this problem, a rever- 
sion to the cart, the stage-coach and the making of commod- 
ities by hand — the destruction of machinery — little need be 
said. It is too palpably absurd to merit serious considera- 
tion. And yet it differs only in degree from what is advo- 
cated by a so-called democracy or other capitalistic "enemies 
of the trusts" who, at least pretentiously, seek to destroy the 
greatest and most thoroughly organized and equipped pro- 
ductive institutions that civilization has yet produced, for 
the purpose of establishing in their stead a greater number 
of small concerns, in an effort to revert to obsolete competi- 
tive methods. But the world has outgrown adherence to 
all such doctrines. Retrogression is impossible. The con- 
tention that any sort of labor-saving device, whether it be 
"trust" or steam engine, should be replaced by any number 
of smaller institutions or machines for the sole purpose of 
giving men jobs regardless of the waste of energy thereby 
entailed, is out of all consonance with the spirit of progress. 
It will never attract the serious and enlightened attention of 
our race, to say nothing of the evident impossibility of ac- 
complishing such results through a capitalistic party while 
wealth concentrations exist and exert their natural sway 
over the conduct of men. 

The economic devices are with us and to stay. They 
constitute a very essential element in that very complex com- 
pound called civilization. They are the means for produc- 
ing things with the least expenditure of time and energy ; and 
they are that which makes human progress or man's higher 
development possible and imperative. The age of machinery 
is just ushering in. Without any claim to prophetic vision 
it may be said that, in great measure, the machine age is yet 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 47 

in its swaddling clothes. To grow to vastly greater fullness, 
it is not necessary that new forces be enslaved, but that we 
keep on devising better means for accumulating and direct- 
ing those already captive. We will make these forces per- 
form the drudgery of earth and give the world time and 
opportunity to develop a manhood and womanhood that is 
not characterized by "smart sets" and slums, by excessive 
riches and excessive wretchedness, by princes and paupers, 
masters and slaves, and an organized system of corruption 
that taints every trace of authority, that may well be the envy 
of the powers of hell. 

Evidently, then, the only solution for the problem of the 
concentration of wealth-ownership involves solely the ques- 
tion of our vestment of ownership in the sources of our ma- 
terial welfare. While these are the exclusive preserves of 
individuals, while they are privately owned and operated as 
they must be in private ownership for the enhancement of 
the wealth and power of the owners, they are of necessity 
the source of private wealth-concentration. While privately 
owned, they must be used to exploit producing humanity; 
they must, in capitalism, be used as a means for producing 
surplus-product and that surplus, in turn, for propagation of 
its kind. In profit, in exploitation, lies the sole sustaining 
force of capitalism. 

The remedy lies in the substitution of collective owner- 
ship of our national resources for the present system of pri- 
vate ownership — in their collective possession and in their 
operation for the purpose of supplying the needs of all, in- 
stead of for enhancement of the possessions of a few of our 
citizens or of foreign investors. 

This is a fundamental tenet of Socialism and any decla- 
ration of principles or demands that omits or evades it is 
foreign to Socialists. They make this demand because they 



48 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

realize that concentration of wealth-ownership and its inevi- 
table consequences are rapidly undermining the very founda- 
tions of our political and social structures. This concentra- 
tion must cease; and that cannot be while these things are 
private preserves. They make this demand because they 
would stop the tyrannical and unjust expropriation of the 
products of toil; because they hold that, in simple justice, 
a producer is entitled to the full social equivalent of his labor. 
The term "social equivalent" as here used is what Social- 
ists mean when they speak of the producer's getting "the 
full product of his labor." It does not mean that if a laborer 
in a shop can make a dozen chairs a day, he shall receive 
as his reward a dozen chairs that he does not want, or a 
dozen other things made by one other laborer in the same 
time that he does want. The laborer in the shop is only one 
requisite to the making of chairs. The shop and machinery 
must be constructed, the raw material gotten out, the 
finished product transported and handled through some 
medium whereby it can most conveniently be reached by a 
consumer — some species of retail establishment; an educa- 
tional system must be maintained, hospitals and all neces- 
sary public institutions must be supported; public improve- 
ments must be made, in short, all needful labor must be car- 
ried on in order that chairs be produced in a manner that is 
in keeping with our civilization. And all the labor in the 
industries plus all the labor necessary to carrying on the in- 
dustries — necessary to making the industries possible — but 
which cannot directly manufacture things, together consti- 
tute the labor socially necessary to production. Our laborer 
might get for his own consumption (or use) the absolute 
equivalent of eight chairs, that is, as much of other commod- 
ities as eight hours' labor will produce, and still get "the full 
product of his labor" — its full social equivalent. 



THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH 49 

"But," says some thoughtless Thomas, "what an endless 
system of reckoning all this entails? How could his just 
share be computed? Who would attempt such a task?" 
Well, who does it now? Or are you so benighted as to 
assume that a similar result is not now arrived at? What 
now determines what a laborer shall or must receive for his 
effort and what part of labor's product shall be bestowed 
here and there wherever it is bestowed? "Nobody," you 
answer, "Like Topsy, it just growed." There is more truth 
than humor in your answer, but it is not all truth. If 
such a balancing of things as now obtains, just or unjust, 
could "grow" out of such a system of industrial anarchy as 
capitalism presents, do you think that a thorough organiza- 
tion, systematization of industry would render any sort of 
method of distribution a very difficult task? Not one whit 
more difficult than is the estimating and levying of taxes to 
run your city or county. No, your answer is not all truth. 
The matter of adjusting that $2 worth that goes to labor 
and of distributing the $8 worth that does not go to him, 
furnishes the problems of the business as well as of the 
political world. But never is the problem one involving 
a question of equity or justice between man and man. It is, 
how can we get more and allow the other fellows less, or 
keep a firm hold on what we have already secured and the 
advantages already gained ? — problems that could in no way 
enter into a Socialist regime. 

Again says another : "Are you not assuming when you 
contend that there is but the one given method for remedy- 
ing this great evil ? Cannot we, by legal process, stop this 
career of the 'predatory rich' and secure a more equitable 
distribution of labor's product?" The question is pertinent 
and merits consideration. 

Can we not enact that more of labor's product shall go 



50 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

to the needful laborers ? Can we not by law raise wages, or, 
what would in effect be the same thing, lower prices and 
maintain them at the lower figure? Evidently it would be 
necessary to legislate on both wages and prices of all com- 
modities ; for if we forced a higher wage without the price- 
governing enactment, our effort would at once be neutralized 
by an advance of the price of labor's subsistence. The ab- 
surdity of such proceedure is self-apparent. At the very 
outset we "have an elephant on our hands" of which we 
would gladly rid ourselves. 

"But New Zealand enacts what shall constitute the mini- 
mum wage." Yes, and that minimum fixes the standard of 
subsistence for all unskilled labor at just its figure; and 
through unskilled labor it likewise fixes the standard in all 
industries in the necessary proportions. New Zealand is a 
small country and not yet blessed with a few millionaires in 
industry to monopolize the exploitation of labor. One 
Rockefeller in such a country would absorb everything sub- 
ject to absorption in about a month. The best features of 
the New Zealand laws are, first, they make strikes practically 
impossible ; second, they make it compulsory on the part of 
the government to furnish some sort of employment to every 
citizen in need of it. 

Suppose a law were enacted in this country raising wages 
and another as its necessary accompaniment fixing a maxi- 
mum of prices so that the first law would be really effective. 
This would lower the capitalist's possible gains from indus- 
try and leave "the fittest to survive." Would the fittest be 
the great concerns or the smaller ones? The survivors 
would of course be those that can produce most cheaply, 
those most thoroughly organized and equipped — those that 
constitute the great trusts. The smaller concerns would be 
at once legislated off the field, unless it were the few that 



CORRUPTION 51 

are of sufficient proportions to be taken under the protecting 
wing of our industrial kings. Would the trusts be de- 
stroyed? Would concentration of wealth cease from thus 
concentrating even a reduced rate (but not necessarily a 
reduced total) of dividends as the share of the few? And 
what has become of the whole system of free contract, and 
competition, and the right to do as one wills with his own? 
And, finally, what is the prospect or possibility of a dominant 
capitalist party's ever attempting such a line of action and 
how long would it remain dominant if it did so? Serious 
consideration of all such schemes is the veriest nonsense. 
As long as capitalism exists, labor will continue to subsist 
upon that portion of its product that is necessary to repro- 
duce labor-power and wealth will concentrate as a conse- 
quence of the surplus produced. 

Even the most radical of mere reformers and the most 
bitter denouncers of the "predatory rich" prate of good 
trusts and bad ones; nor do any of these tinkerers of the 
capitalist system, for one moment, contemplate seriously the 
destruction of the trusts any more than they think of de- 
stroying the steam engine. The trust is now as much a 
fixture as any other device based upon necessity for economy 
in production. It is the great wealth-concentrating medium 
and the remedy for its attendant and resultant evils is its 
collective ownership. 



VI. 

CORRUPTION. 

The one subject of a public nature with which the 
American people are most familiar is doubtless the matter 



52 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

of corruption in official and business life. For some years 
this has been the favorite theme of contributors to periodi- 
cals of every sort. Our papers and magazines have been 
literally saturated with its narrations,, and the end is not 
yet. Every crime listed in our codes and some that the 
listers overlooked or knew not of have been charged direct- 
ly against individuals holding positions of public and of 
private trust. The "muck raker" has been unsparing in his 
attacks and no sanctum has been too sacred for his invasion. 
The bank, the corporation's chief place of business, the head- 
quarters and the chief functionaries therein of political 
parties, election booths, police stations, the city's council 
chamber, the state capitol, the legislative hall, the House of 
Representatives, the Senate, all have been paraded before 
the footlights in our national vaudeville of scandal. Yet 
despite all the personal attacks and accusations of criminal, 
or at least compromising relations, accusations that if not 
sustainable by competent evidence constitute about every 
possible degree of criminal libel ; despite the fact that many 
of these charges were made directly against men of great 
wealth and men in high places, not a single "muck raker" 
nor his publisher w r as ever brought into court, as a result 
of his exposures, even to defend a civil action. Some cases 
were filed and some threatened, but they were soon with- 
drawn or failed entirely to materialize. Investigating com- 
mittees were appointed by various bodies authorized to do 
so, and in every instance their reports revealed even worse 
conditions than were claimed to exist by those making the 
exposures. This was notably true in the matters relating 
to management of insurance and the illegal combines of 
owners, of coal mines and railways. Upton Sinclair, David 
Graham Phillips, Charles Edward Russell, Thomas W. Law- 
son and others, in their narrations from actual life, have 



CORRUPTION 53 

made heads to bow in shame, eyes to flash and jaws to 
snap in anger, words to flow in denunciation or in explana- 
tions that did not explain, yet the anomalous circumstance 
remains that neither the accuser nor the accused has been 
held to answer in any court either civil or criminal for any 
statement made or injury inflicted. There seemed to be no 
desire on the part of the accused to have the facts relative 
to his doings related in a court of record; and yet, in face 
of a train of corrupt practices and graft whose exposure 
forced insurance kings to abdicate without a struggle, we 
are told by the public prosecutor of the greatest city in our 
land that so skillfully have the thieveries been planned and 
executed that no form of indictment against any one of 
them would stand judicial scrutiny. 

A history of the corrupt practices that have been un- 
earthed in connection with the governments of our munici- 
palities would fill volumes. First one city and then another 
is brought into the lime-light until the daily chronicle of 
official venality has ceased to excite even curiosity. 

As an instance, the Literary Digest (Jan. 9, 1909), tells 
us that a detective informs Mayor Guthrie, of Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, "that there were only six incorruptible men 
in the City Council — the rest being 'for sale at prices rang- 
ing from $5 upward/ " "Terrifying," declares the Mayor, 
"is the extent to which graft and insidious corruption of all 
sorts have undermined the government of our great cities — 
a process which if not checked 'will spread from cities to the 
states and thence to the nation, and the peril of the future 
will be not of violence from without, but of corruption from 
within.' " 

The Mayor's vision, or at least his expression of it, is 
certainly limited. Legislatures are bought and sold, both 
before and after their convening", with as extreme non- 



54 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

chalance as were ever city councils; nor is it necessary to 
travel far from Pennsylvania to gain that knowledge from 
original sources. And what shall we say of his reference to 
all this, in view of the history of our nation for the last two 
decades, as "the peril of the future"? Shall we call it 
human blindness? Or is it optimism ossified? 

Franklin P. Gowan, president of the Pennsylvania & 
Reading railway, said to the committee on commerce of our 
national House of Representatives: "I have heard the 
counsel of the Pennsylvania railway, standing in the Su- 
preme Court of Pennsylvania, threaten that court with the 
displeasure of his clients if it decided against them." 

An author of law text books, J. D. Lawson, warns stu- 
dents, "so far as the law of carriers is concerned pay little 
heed to the decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. 
The Pennsylvania railway appears to run that tribunal with 
about the same success that it does its own trains." 

And yet this Mayor gets excited over the sale of some 
Pittsburg councilmen — some ward heelers and political thugs 
such as her franchise grabbers and "eminently respectable 
citizens" place in authority when something worth owning 
is in sight or when their already acquired special privileges 
may need protection by "the strong arm of the law" — and 
discovers in it a condition that may spread to the states and 
become a "peril of the future." That man would have to 
be aboard the cart for the guillotine before he could be 
brought to realize that the French had revolted. 

But Pennsylvania is not a marked exception. Recently 
a president of a western railway said to Professor Frank 
Parsons: "We've got to control the legislatures or they 
will control us. Rates, service, investment, capitalization, 
terminal facilities, labor conditions, combination — everything 
in fact about the railway business is subject to the legisla- 



CORRUPTION 55 

tive pull. If we control the legislature the pull is our way ; 
if not, it is likely to be the other way. In any session of 
congress or the legislature of any state in which our lines 
are located, a bill may be introduced that threatens our busi- 
ness in some way. It may be a bill in the interests of a 
rival system, giving them an advantage that will mean great 
gain for them and great loss perhaps for us. Or it may be 
a bill to fix rates, or subject us to inconvenience, surveillance, 
or abolish grade crossings, or compel us to put in automatic 
appliances, couplers, switches, etc., or some other scheme 
that will cost us a lot of money. Or the bill may be simply 

some grafter's bid for blackmail under cover of an 

apparent public purpose, introduced by some scamp member 
on purpose to be bought off. We've got to be ready to 
defend ourselves along the whole line. We must be able to 
stop adverse bills and put our own bills through. And to 

do this at reasonable cost is often very difficult, for the 

grafters have got so used to lumps of railroad money that 
they won't vote for a railroad bill without the dough, even 
when we show them that the act is in perfect harmony with 
the public interests."* 

It requires but little insight on the part of an American 
citizen to discern that this all-pervading corruption, like a 
great ulcer, is sapping the vital forces of this nation at every 
pore, just as it drained the life out of the nations of the 
past. The condition is chronic and so familiar have our peo- 
ple grown to look upon the loathsome affection, so often have 
they witnessed but a temporary and local stay of its ravages 
by application of the most potent remedies that capitalism 
can prescribe, that serious consideration of actually curing 
the thing is treated by adherents of the present system of 



* Parsons : 'The Railways, the Trusts and the People," page 95- 



56 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

industry as a joke. They have lost faith in parties and in 
men ; and as they know of no manner of dealing with the 
evil except electing men to office to carry on the old routine, 
to them the case is indeed hopeless. Nor is it any wonder 
that it is so. 

A vast majority of our people frankly admit that corrup- 
tion, like the concentration of the ownership of wealth, must 
in some way be stopped ; but they are like the people of the 
northern states before the rebellion — willing to do anything 
to cure the evil of chattel slavery except what would cure 
it. The few who advocated the one and only remedy were 
very undesirable citizens. 

Go to any one of the numerous cities whose officials have 
been so unfortunate as to get caught in their deviltry (and 
that is wherein they are unlike many other cities of their 
class) and what do we find underlying their every criminal 
act? First, the power to grant immunity from prosecution 
to violators of the law. Second, the power to grant con- 
tracts. Third, the power to grant franchises. 

The granting of immunity from prosecution to law- 
breakers is almost as common as policemen. Thousands of 
instances of this species of corruption could be cited at any 
time if those who know would but speak. It is a rare cir- 
cumstance in any city when drinking dives, gambling hells, 
robbers' nests and houses of assignation and prostitution are 
not regularly contributing "hush money" to officials whose 
sworn duty it is to suppress them. But "hush money" is 
but one avenue of escape — the course usually taken by the 
law breakers who occupy the lower strata of society. In 
some cities, notably Los Angeles, it now appears that many 
disreputable places are a source of revenue for a goodly 
number of the rich who own stock in a certain sugar com- 
pany in which those in authority are also interested. It 



CORRUPTION 57 

seems a case of "what is the constitution between friends ?" 
Many contracts that those in authority must grant, it 
skilfully manipulated in the granting, are a source of great 
profit — and graft. There is "thousands in them" and a rea- 
sonable "divide" is quite commonly regarded as the proper 
thing. This species of corruption is all-pervading from the 
smaller cities to the national government itself. The ap- 
pointment of a committee by our national officers or con- 
gress to investigate corrupt dealings in the management of 
our postal service is not uncommon, and their reports have 
involved officials of high rank as participants in shameless 
frauds. In every instance, the evil doing had its roots in the 
letting of a contract. Both corrupter and corrupted seemed 
to act upon the theory that "the public treasury is primarily 
for private loot" ; and the mere giving or taking of a bribe 
is a small matter when there is "something in it" for all con- 
cerned. Pittsburg's recent unearthing of a series of 
briberies to get the city's money deposited in certain banks 
is the latest fully developed variety of the contract species of 
corruption. The banks wanted that money to loan and 
were willing to pay in advance a part of the gains that would 
certainly fall to them through securing the deposits. 

The most usual and conspicuous cases of corruption in 
our municipal, state and national affairs are in connection 
with the granting of franchises. Their conspicuity is due 
to the wealth of the corrupter, the magnitude of the sums 
disbursed and the number and rank of officials involved. 
Hundreds of thousands in cold cash are the entry fees in 
this game where there are millions in sight for the winner. 
St. Louis, San Francisco and some other "unfortunates" at- 
test this fact. Charles Edward Russell, in "At the Throat 
of the Republic." tells us that nearly a million of dollars 
was spent in one election in New York city in order to 



58 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

secure control of a board of aldermen; but when we learn 
that those same aldermen would have, as part only of their 
duties, the sole disposition of franchises worth ten times the 
amount spent to secure them, the donations are nowise 
disproportionate. 

The foregoing discussion, though a mere outline, suffices 
to indicate the sources of corruption and, likewise, the ambi- 
tions that perpetuate it. In every instance it is to the bribed 
the payment directly of money or indirectly of some lucra- 
tive position, for the sole purpose, on the part of the briber, 
of acquiring possession of some source of gain. Now, in 
what lies this power to pay; and what makes possible the 
gainful institutions for whose possession so many stand 
ready to sacrifice honor and risk liberty and disgrace? 
What is the source of gain to both briber and bribed? It 
must lie in the products of labor, for the gain is some form 
of material wealth or some means for its acquisition, and 
certain it is, these must originate in productive labor only. 

This leads us directly to our divided labor product. The 
gain, whether corruption fund or the resulting acquisition of 
the corrupter, can be no part of the $2 worth consumed by 
labor. Then it follows that both corruption fund and all 
that is acquired by or through it must draw its entire sus- 
tenance from the $8 worth that is exploited through this 
capitalist system of industry from the products of toil. This 
is the sole source ; no other is possible. 

We have already seen something of the struggle among 
capitalists for possession of the nation's sources of subsist- 
ence, the labor-exploiting mediums, the things through 
whose ownership possession of the $8 worth is secured. 
Corruption but reveals one phase of this struggle. A con- 
tract grants a special opportunity for exploitation for a re- 
latively short time. A franchise is a special privilege to 



CORRUPTION 59 

plant an exploiting medium to operate for a number of years 
or indefinitely. In cities these are very valuable properties, 
that is, great sources of profit, efficient means not only for 
the creation of the $8 worth but for pocketing a goodly 
share of it. To gain these contracts or franchises, more 
especially the latter, the bribers and corrupters (business 
representatives of the respectable rich) will debauch election 
officials and electors and blaze a course through a line of 
"public servants" to the last one in authority. 

A peculiar instance illustrative of a shadowy glimpse at 
the source and significance of this corruption fund came 
under the author's observation recently. Meeting some la- 
borers who had long worked in San Francisco, the subject 
of her very protracted and extensive official filth and its ex- 
posures was very naturally broached. Noting an apparent 
indifference on their part as to the outcome of the prosecu- 
tions then in full sway, inquiry was made as to the cause of 
their attitude in the matter. "Why," they said, "should we 
worry ourselves about such things? Those corruptionists 
never stole anything from us. They made the capitalists 
divvy and then divided the loot. The city is rotten to the 
core, but it is all a squabble among the capitalists." "Yes," 
I replied, "you got your two dollars out of your labor ; you 
are indifferent as to what became of the other eight." "What 
eight?" "The eight that the capitalists extracted from your 
labor's products and that you say they were squabbling 
over." They looked at each other, then at me and one re- 
marked, "You must be one of them Socialists." In their 
ignorance they recognized that there was in that city a 
tremendous fund in which they could never share, that 
neither increased nor diminished their "pay"; but the 
thought that it must have its origin in the labor-product ;>f 
the nation, they had never entertained, any more than the 



60 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

thought that it had sprung spontaneously from the earth 
and alighted in the lap of its present possessors. 

We found in the private ownership of the nation's means 
of subsistence the source of the evil of concentrating wealth 
as the possession of a few. The great struggle of the capi- 
talists is to secure this ownership and through it amass the 
products of labor. We found the remedy in the collective 
ownership and operation of these things, thus eliminating 
the possibility of exploiting labor. Grant this collective 
ownership and democratic management and no official is 
then empowered to bestow contracts and franchises. The 
delegated authority, the corruption fund and the exploiting 
medium for whose ownership officialdom is corrupted alike 
are gone. Who then would corrupt officials and for what 
purpose? But while private ownership — the capitalist sys- 
tem of industry — is in vogue, so will be corruption; while 
special privileges and franchises are for sale, so will be offi- 
cials. With our present tremendous means for producing 
wealth, under individual ownership concentration of for- 
tunes and corruption are concomitants. The cause of the 
one is identical with that of the other ; therefore, identity of 
remedy is self-evident. 

But there are other forms or modes of corruption than 
those that predominate in our cities — forms far more menac- 
ing to our institutions, to our national life, than any yet 
considered. In these cases the work of the corrupter is 
more difficult of exposure in its real hideousness; or, to 
state the facts as they are, since the corrupter does his work 
wholly within the bounds of law, he is usually indifferent as 
to the matter of being exposed. In fact, in some instances, 
exposure redounds to his advantage through revelation of 
his power to control the conduct of men and the necessity 
for obedience of his mandates. A single instance will suffice 



CORRUPTION 61 

for illustration of one such mode of corruption fully de- 
veloped. The channels through which this corrupting influ- 
ence exerts itself are the venal advocate, the political ma- 
chine and the capitalist-owned or subsidized press. 

As we must here resort to the Congressional Record for 
evidence, a few preliminary words of explanation are neces- 
sary. 

Our government hires the railway companies to carry the 
mail. It pays these companies so much per pound for all 
mail carried and, in addition, it pays rental for the cars in 
which the carrying is done. This double system of charging 
is in itself peculiar. It is as if a business firm hiring cars 
for the purpose of shipping goods were to be charged, in 
addition to the car rate, so much per pound for what was 
put in them. 

An express company also hires the railway companies to 
carry goods consigned to it for transportation and is fur- 
nished special cars just as is the government. Its common 
form of payment is a percentage of the express companies' 
receipts, but there is no car rental in the consideration. 

This letting of contracts to the railway companies by 
our government officials has long been a fruitful field for 
corruption — a direct means of payment for political favors 
out of the public treasury. Some estimation of the expense 
to the public of such payment may be gleaned from the fol- 
lowing figures carefully compiled by Professor Parsons. It 
is a comparison of what different persons or organizations 
pay the railway companies for carrying 100,000,000 tons one 
mile or one ton 100,000,000 miles : 

At average railway express rates would cost about $5,000,000 
At average excess baggage rates would cost about 6,000,000 

At average freight rates would cost 800,000 

At actual mail rates (1898) 34,754,000 



62 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

In addition to this we pay as car rental an average of 
$6,250 per year per car for cars whose construction costs 
but from $2,500 to $5,000 each. In other words, we pay 
as rental from 3.42 cents to 6.85 cents per mile per car c 
The beef trust charges % of one cent per mile for its cars 
and still reaps rich harvests from its enterprise.* 

This looting of our public funds for the benefit of cor- 
porations has been at various times brought vividly to the 
attention of our congress, but to no other purpose than to 
continue it or actually increase its volume from year to year. 
For instance, on May 12, 1908, a bill was before the United 
States Senate carrying among other things an appropriation 
of $4,600,000 "for railway post-office car cervice," or in 
other words, for car rentals. To this bill Senator Thomas 
P. Gore of Oklahoma offered some amendments. In order 
to eliminate all questions of authenticity or veracity concern- 
ing this matter, the following is the verbatim record of the 
proceedings in the Senate in relation thereto as found on 
pages 6396 and 6397 of the Congressional Record, under 
date of May 12, 1908 : 

"Mr. Gore. I desire to submit an amendment. On 
page 22, after line 18, I move to insert the following pro- 
viso: 

"Provided, That the Postmaster-General shall not pay 
more for the transportation of mails than express companies 
pay for the transportation of express of similar weight and 
character. 

"The Vice-President. The question is on the agreement 
to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Oklahoma. 

"Mr. Gore. Mr. Pesident, I will state the reason why I 
offer the amendment. In a great many countries in the 



* Parsons : "The Railways, the Trusts and the People," pages 
146 and 148. 



CORRUPTION 63 

world the railway companies carry the mails free of charge. 
That is true in France, I understand, except where the cars 
belong to the Government, in which case a nominal charge is 
paid amounting to one cent per car mile. In Austria-Hun- 
gary and in Germany one car per train is carried free of 
charge on other than Government railroads. In Italy and in 
Belgium the mails are carried free of charge, as I am in- 
formed. 

"Now, it is not my purpose or the purpose of any one 
to ask the railroads of this country to transport mails free 
of charge; but, sir, the charges received by the railroads 
paid by the Government are far in excess of that which is 
reasonable and just. 

"I will cite a few discriminations based upon estimates 
rendered a few years ago. The charges from New York to 
Boston on first-class freight matter was 38 cents a hun- 
dred ; on express it was 50 cents a hundred, and on mail it 
was 89 cents a hundred. From New York to Atlanta, Ga., 
the first-class freight charge was $1.26 a hundred; the ex- 
press charge was $2 a hundred, and the mail charge was 
$3.50 a hundred. From New York to Chicago the charge 
was 75 cents a hundred for first-class freight, $1.25 for ex- 
press, and $3.56 for mail. The charge from New York to 
San Francisco at the same time was $3 a hundred for first- 
class freight, $6.75 for express, and $13.28 for the mails. 

"Now, sir, there is no justice and no justification in dis- 
criminations of that character, and I therefore move to limit 
the charge for mail to the charges paid by the express com- 
panies to the railroads for similar services. 

"In the Dominion of Canada mail is classified as freight 
of the lowest classification and bears the lowest rate. This 
amendment carries no proposition of that sort, but it seeks 
to protect the Government against charges which are un- 



64 INDUSTRIAL P R( ) Bl ;E M S 

reasonable and unjust. If there is any justification for pay- 
ing so much greater charges for postage than for express, I 
would like see some Senator justify it." 

"Mr. Penrose. Mr. President, the conditions are so ab- 
solutely dissimilar between the character of express and mail 
matter that I trust the Senate will not agree to the amend- 
ment." 

"The amendment was rejected. 

"Mr. Gore. On page 23 I move to strike out lines 13 
and 14 in the following words : 'For railway post-office car 
service, $4,600,000.' 

"The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to 
the amendment proposed by the Senator from Oklahoma. 

"Mr. Gore. I move to strike out these lines because, as 
I have suggested, we pay very much more for carrying the 
mails than is paid for either freight or express matter, and 
in addition to that we pay an excessive charge for rental of 
the cars in many instances. I therefore move to strike out 
these lines. 

"The amendment was rejected. 

"Mr. Gore. At the end of line 14 on page 23 I move 
to insert: 

" That the Postmaster-General shall not pay more annual 
rental for the postal cars than 33 1-3 per cent of the cost of 
the car/ 

"The Vice-President. The question is on agreement to 
the amendment proposed by the Senator from Oklahoma. 

The amendment was rejected. 

"Mr. Gore. I move to insert after line 14 on page 23 : 

" That the Postmaster-General shall not pay more annual 
rental for postal cars than the cars cost/ 

"I submit that the government has paid at times practi- 
cally three times as much annual rental for postal cars as the 



CORRUPTION 65 

cars cost. Now, that is a self-evident injustice and extor- 
tion. Possibly no Senator will say that these cars ought to 
realize to the railroads 300 per cent, or even 200 per cent, 
and not more possibly than 100 per cent. In the interest 
not of justice, but of common decency, I move to limit the 
rental to at least the cost of the cars. 

"The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to 
the amendment. 

"Mr. Gore. On that I call for the yeas and nays. 

"The yeas and nays were not ordered. 

"The amendment was rejected. 

In this record we witness on the part of Senator Gore 
an attempt to prevent the looting of the public treasury to 
an extent that, as he says, is without the bounds of justice 
and common decency ; to prevent a steal of such proportions 
that by comparison all that has ever passed through bribery 
into the hands of city officials in all our cities combined (so 
far as has come to light) seems insignificant. He fails sig- 
nally, ignominiously ; and the record of his attempt and of 
his failure is a part of the indisputable record of the doings 
of our highest legislative body, a record made and approved 
by that body, a public document. 

No political party represented in that body can shift re- 
sponsibility for that corrupt proceeding. The membership 
refused the call of yeas and nays although it requires but 
one-fifth of those present* to make such a record. Evident- 
ly the printing of an unqualified "yes" or "no" opposite the 
name of each Senator was not desired, at least not by one- 
fifth of them. The unrecorded vote would be a source of 
far less trouble for them in the future. It would leave open 
an avenue of escape when driven to bay by a possibly in- 
quisitive and protesting constituency. And the concealed 



*U. S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5. 



66 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

affirmative vote served the full purpose of the corrupters, the 
monied interests. 

Now here is indisputable evidence of vile corruption in 
high places, in plain English, of a steal that shocks the sensi- 
bilities of every American in any manner capable of com- 
prehending its significance. And who would dare assume 
that it did not shock the doers of that deed? Using the 
word in its ordinary sense, to call these Senators thieves is 
not admissible. There may not be one among them whom 
one could not in safety personally trust with uncounted gold. 
Then how are we to account for such conduct in their deal- 
ing with or for the public ? Such things must be to them a 
source of deep humiliation; if not, then the statement that 
they are not in every sense thieves must be reconstructed. 
There is but one reasonable and sane solution of the appar- 
ent mystery that shrouds such conduct. We say "apparent 
mystery'' because, when understood, their deportment loses 
all that savors of mysticism and becomes evidence absolute 
of servility. They act under a species of duress; they do 
what circumstances compel. 

In homely English, each one of those Senators (and each 
one of us) knows that if he participates in the defeat of the 
railway's ambition to acquire those millions, if he battles 
and votes against such a vital interest of the monied powers, 
the chances are many to one that his days as a member of 
that body are numbered. In fact it is commonly under- 
stood, at least by implication, that he will not do so (that 
he is safe and sane) before he is permitted to assume such 
a responsible position. His self- justification lies in this, that 
if he does not "stand in" with the powers that be, they will 
shelve him and put in his stead another who will. And to 
his shame and ours, it must be said, that is just what will 
occur. 



CORRUPTION 67 

If the conduct of a senator or congressman meets with 
the displeasure of the railway owners and, consequently, of 
the monied powers and corporations generally (for they are 
all allied through common ownership and directorates) the 
venal advocate, the political machine and the capitalist- 
owned and subsidized press are quietly set to work. Many 
reasons are found and magnified to any required proportions 
— all reasons are conjured up and magnified except the real 
reason — why he is not the proper and most capable man to 
represent "his constituency" ; "more able and available" men 
in any required number are brought forward, backed by 
press and politician ; the orders go down the entire line and 
are obeyed as the mandates of an autocrat; and when the 
conventions or legislatures meet, our Senator or Representa- 
tive seeking re-election finds himself as friendless as a mas- 
terless dog. He is down and out, supplanted by a "states- 
man" who better understands his real function as a "repre- 
sentative of the people." The facts are not overstated nor 
exaggerated in a statement issued by the New York Board 
of Trade that tells us: "The railroads control absolutely 
the legislatures of a majority of the states of the Union; 
they make and unmake United States Senators, Representa- 
tives, and Governors, and are practically dictators of the 
governmental policy of the United States." 

During the national campaign of 1908, a most nauseating 
chapter was incorporated in our political history that tells 
of the downfall of a United States senator from one of the 
chief abodes of Standard Oil, because it was revealed that 
sometime, somewhere, he had acted as agent or attorney 
for that corporation in an effort to secure control of a news- 
paper. What renders the whole trumped up "exposure" 
particularly disgusting is its unconcealed evidence of pre- 
sumptive (or actual) ignorance on the part of the American 



68 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

people. The whole controversy was waged on the assump- 
tion that the people did not know enough to know that no 
man could be elected to the Senate from that State, by any 
capitalist party, who was not in all ways acceptable to 
Standard Oil. The whole function of press and politician 
seemed to be to play upon ignorance typified by faith in such 
a myth as the possibility of machine-run, capitalist organiza- 
tions such as the Republican or Democratic parties of his 
State actually side-tracking a man for such a cause. If they 
had been honest enough to tell us that he was dislodged be- 
cause he had proven persona non grata to a few in high 
places; or that he was so careless as to get caught — but 
that would have spoiled the entire fa«rce. 

In his State or in any other where Standard Oil is a 
political factor, a candidate who is in any sense considered 
as inimical to its interests, is, of necessity, confronted at the 
very threshold of his ambitious venture by not only Stand- 
ard Oil, but by all of its natural and never faltering allies, 
its partners in business, in large measure its commonly 
owned concerns, — the railroads, the banks, the steel trust, 
the coal trust — the consolidated monied interests of the 
State and nation. The press and all the cohorts of the polit- 
ical machine are theirs. Against such a combination, a 
capitalist candidate adverse to Standard Oil would stand 
about as much of a show to enter high official life and stay 
there as would a certain proverbial snowball at cooling its 
adverse environment. Men seeking preferment well under- 
stand this — or soon learn it. They do homage to the indus- 
trial despot or they enter not his sanctuary. 

We have but briefly outlined a system of corruption car- 
ried on wholly within the law, wherein no secret bribe is 
proffered, in which the corrupter simply does in lawful man- 
ner what he wills with his own. He employs his agents 



CORRUPTION 69 

and advocates (the political machine) and hires editors for 
his own private enterprises in journalism. He pays high 
prices and commands efficient service. And yet here, 
within statutory limits, is carried on a system of corruption 
that permeates every nook and corner of the nation and 
that by comparison dwarfs into insignificance all that was 
ever unearthed in San Francisco, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Phil- 
adelphia, New York, and all the other cities combined. 

Like other types of corruption, this all-pervading system 
is imbedded in the private ownership of our sources of sub- 
sistence. It is inherent in the struggle to gain possession of 
what is exploited from labor. It has no other mission ; it 
can accomplish for the corrupter no other purpose. It will 
continue as long as that $8 worth or any part of it is the 
prize to be gained by such methods — as long as private own- 
ership of industries shall obtain. There is one remedy and 
one only and that is the fulfillment of the Socialist demand — 
collective ownership of the sources of life. 

Another source of corruption not less insidious than that 
just discussed is the tainted press. This corrupter, like vice 
clothed in the garb of virtue, comes into almost every home 
reeking with misrepresentation, misconstruction, falsehood 
and filth. Not one paragraph touching the interests of any 
considerable cash contributor, or advertiser, or the doings of 
the moneymongers has any claim to credibility. As false- 
hood or misrepresentation is born of an evil purpose, these 
periodicals enter our homes a constant flood of mental 
poison. 

One of the best representatives of editorial work in this 
country tells us in the presence of an important gathering 
of his craft that the idea of a free or independent or truth- 
ful press is a myth ; that he is paid $150 per week not for 
his opinions, but to put in form what other and interested 



70 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

parties desire to have said; not to write the truth as he or 
they know it, but falsehood of which both are cognizant; 
and that his fellow listeners are doing a like service. There 
is no report that any denied it. Some ten years ago, an- 
other professional writer (William Scholl McClure) in an 
address before the Albany Press Club, referred to himself 
and his associates as: "Mental prostitutes, accomplices in 
rascality, and professional beggars — to such lives does the 
force of a competitive system reduce us; nor is there any 
escape so long as the system remains unchanged." 

The dispensers of poisonous concoctions, or utterly 
worthless compounds, as patent medicines, are immune from 
attack by the press, behind the shield of a contract for ad- 
vertising that stipulates its nullification if the paper with 
which the contract is made does not at least remain neutral 
in and suppress news of any attack through attempted legis- 
lation adverse to the interests of the dispensary. A word 
of adverse criticism, a simple statement of fact, and the 
contract is canceled. 

Yet this press is a more omnipresent and all-pervading 
source of "information," exerts a greater influence on public 
opinion than does any other institution of today. 

This servility, this toadyism of the press to the monied 
interests is a condition that circumstances impose upon it. 
Newspapers and periodicals in general are business enter- 
prises whose sustenance is drawn from the scramble of the 
exploiters over the division of the $8 worth daily con- 
tributed by the producer. If they had to live from what 
they can get from the $2 worth that falls to the lot of need- 
ful labor, life's termination for them would be a matter of 
minutes. And so it must remain as long as that $8 worth 
or any part of it is left to scramble over — as long as labor 
is exploited. A free, truthful, non-corrupting press is as 



CORRUPTION 71 

incompatible with capitalism as anything of which the human 
mind can conceive. 

Whatever in human institutions empowers a man or a set 
of men to abridge the liberties of others is a source of cor- 
ruption. The exercise of that power engenders in the sub- 
ordinate an attitude and a spirit of servility, of hypocrisy, 
and of co % wardice incompatible with true manhood. And it 
matters not whether that subordinate be in the Senate or 
in the workshop. The author has addressed audiences 
wherein laboring men stealthily and nervously guarded all 
approaches, fearful lest some spying overseer or boss should 
detect them in the act of listening to doctrine that he might 
(and doubtless would) construe as treasonous to his or, 
more generally, his master's interests. This is the experi- 
ence of every man who ever advocated the rights of the 
down-trodden. Cowed men and women? Yes, America is 
full of them — fearful of speech or act that may result in 
disfavor of a master. And why should they not fear? The 
master owns their source of life's subsistence — their jobs. 
At his caprice they can be and are sent adrift; and many 
there are who have tasted the bitter fruits of loyalty to 
honor and conviction. But seal their lips as they may, they 
are still enthralled. A sign is conspicuously displayed or 
an authoritative announcement is stealthily passed down the 
line to the effect that if certain capitalistic servants are not 
landed in office, it will be at once necessary to reduce the 
working force or suspend operation indefinitely. Mingled 
with that damning dictate of an enslaver come visions of the 
road, of the tears of wife and wail of children. 

Freedom? We have reached such a stage in the de- 
velopment of our means of production that while those 
means are private property our liberty is but a mockery, a 
thing for the political mystic to conjure with. 



72 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

There is nothing in this loss of freedom to excite won- 
derment if we recall the actual conditions in which men 
must now gain a livelihood. We must keep in mind that 
the industries of the nation are to our people the sources of 
life's sustenance; that in them our people (producers) must 
work or die; that the former avenues to at least partial 
liberty in the great, undeveloped West are now closed ; that 
the displacement of the former independent worker and 
small tool owner by the machine and factory has abso- 
lutely socialized production; that the development of indus- 
trial processes has left our producing masses entirely de- 
pendent upon access to privately owned concerns. It is 
only with a realizing sense of conditions as they actually are 
that this problem of our waning liberties can be approached. 
The producer is simply driven to bay. He must surrender 
and beg for quarter; there is left for him no other alterna- 
tive while he tolerates this system of industry. But there 
is a way out. Liberty is not past recall; the chains of 
slavery are not riveted beyond breaking. He can join with 
his co-laborers and all others who perceive the inevitable 
trend of human destiny, wrest through the medium of our 
institutions the powers of government from the hand of 
organized, corrupting and enslaving greed and proclaim that 
the sources of subsistence of the people shall henceforth be 
used for the general welfare, the upbuilding of humanity 
and not for amassing dividends. This he can do; and, if 
he would be free, this he must do. Here, as elsewhere, the 
Socialist is absolutely sure of his ground. No man can be 
free and uncorrupted while another possesses his certain 
and only source of life-sustenance. That ownership must 
be collective or master and slave be perpetual. The differ- 
ence between the ownership of a man's life as a chattel and 
the ownership of that to which he must gain access in order 



CORRUPTION 73 

to preserve his life is slight, and, from an economic stand- 
point, in favor of the latter. 

The trail of corruption marks every field of labor. Per- 
haps the work of no other class of men, except that of the 
so-called statesmen, is more deeply dyed by capitalism than 
is that of those who occupy the pulpits of this nation. 
Thousands of these men are studious and thoughtful and 
would be progressive if they were free. But while they 
must receive their daily bread chiefly from the hand of 
those who fatten upon the $8 worth exploited from labor, 
they certainly cannot fly in the face of such an economically 
determining force. At least they cannot do so and avoid 
necessity for seeking new fields of activity. Like the offi- 
cial, the statesman, the press, and the laborer, they are re- 
pressed, subordinated; and so they will remain as long as 
industrial tyrants are enthroned. The resultant evil is two 
fold — a straining of that quality of manhood known as vera- 
city and a suppression of honest conviction. If this is not 
to be classed as corruption, we must revise the definition of 
that term. 

What has been said regarding those engaged in minis- 
terial work applies with equal force to teachers and profes- 
sors in our schools and universities. We have witnessed 
the humiliating spectacle of great institutions of learning 
bowing in dependence upon the donations of the exploiters 
of labor. We have heard these enslaving donations heralded 
as evidence of a righteous stewardship of wealth ; the while 
statesmen gain repute by squandering anuually hundreds of 
millions upon thieving railways and for an enginery of de- 
struction necessary to guard a foreign market. We have 
seen educators of national repute dislodged for presuming 
to express an honest conviction on matters discordant to the 



74 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

ears of some master of industry; and we know that thou- 
sands of lips are sealed lest a like fate be meted out to them 
for similar offenses. Is this the way to build up a splendid, 
thoughtful, fearless manhood? Or is it the corrupting of 
authoritative thought and expression at its highest and at 
what should be its most trustworthy source? Neither men 
nor institutions can ever be free or uncorrupted while in a 
condition of industrial dependency — while the nation's 
sources of subsistence are avenues of exploitation. 

It is scarcely necessary to mention the slavish subordi- 
nation in which tens of thousands of small merchants eke 
out an existence from the ragtag and bobtail of the $8 worth 
supplied by labor. Tucked away in some corner with a little 
stock of cigars, fruit, groceries, shoddy or junk ; or even in 
more pretentious quarters with so many competitors that 
to live is a struggle ; with the certainty before him that the 
chances are more than nine to one that his "business ven- 
ture" is to end in failure; whiling from twelve to sixteen 
hours of every day in one monotonous grind of effort to 
realize from petty sales — what is there in such a life that 
any should seek it except under stress of circumstances that 
are compelling? Nor need attention be called to the fact 
that from the very conditions imposed upon him, aptitude 
at misrepresentation and lying is an essential part of the 
stock in trade. So thoroughly interwoven into the whole 
process of exchange has false representation become, that it 
is universally regarded as conventional. 

There is not one element in such a life that is uplifting 
or ennobling, not one. Not long since one of the prominent 
lawyers of California said to the author: "In anv matter 
calling for a bold, open stand upon a question of either local 
or governmental policy, over which there is any marked 
degree of controversy and in which every man should assert 



CORRUPTION 75 

an interest and act his part, you will find among no other 
class of our citizens so marked a degree of, well, let us say 
timidity, as among the merchant class. They tremble lest 
they possibly offend and thereby lose a dollar in trade." 

There is a cause for this state of affairs — for this cor- 
rupted condition of manhood — and as in the instances previ- 
ously cited, that cause lies wholly in economic dependence. 
The merchant lives by sufferance of others. Not only is he 
dependent upon local patrons, but at best, he has come to be 
but a sort of agent for some big concerns — a species of 
agency in which the principal is relieved from responsibility 
for the deportment of his subordinate. And even this sem- 
blance of liberty is being taken from him. Already in our 
larger cities, the retailers of meat, tobacco and distilled 
liquors are but hired men, agents of the wholesaler or 
manufacturer. A would-be independent retailer finds that 
his proffered purchases are rejected or he must pay retail 
prices for stock. 

In short humanity is today under sway of an industrial 
tyranny so powerful that it tyrannizes over tyrants. It has 
not been many years since J. Pierpont Morgan said in sub- 
stance that international policies would henceforth be dic- 
tated at the round table of the knights of finance; and he 
never spoke more truthful words or words of greater im- 
port. This tyranny is debasing, liberty destroying, corrupt- 
ing in its every vein. It is the tyranny of the money power 
of the world. Those who exercise it are in possession of the 
sources of the nation's subsistence and every dollar's worth 
from whose possession that power springs is extracted from 
the toilers through the system of industry called capitalism. 
"Let the nation own the trusts." 



76 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

VII. 
THE UNEMPLOYED. 

In the capitalist system of industry, the means of pro- 
duction — the natural source of raw material, the earth, and 
the artificial appliances for putting this raw material into 
useful things, machinery — these absolute requirements to 
our national existence and our individual lives are private 
property. They are now dominated by a relatively few 
members of our order of property-mongers ; and we have 
seen that membership in that order, in its ratio to popula- 
tion, must decrease and not increase. 

By far the larger part of our people must use these 
things — earth and machinery — for productive purposes, 
must with and through them do all the labor necessary to 
production. To do this, that is, in order to live, they must 
gain access to these privately owned means of their liveli- 
hood. Now, as this private possession is absolute, is held 
more sacred than life itself, is backed by every organized 
force of government, it follows that the right of access to 
these things and consequently the right of the laborer to 
life itself is entirely at the disposal of the private owner. 
He can admit the laborer to this life-source or exclude him 
from it to suffer and even die of want ; and there is nothing 
in capitalism that dares to question the righteousness of this 
authority. In other words, the laborer owns the commodity 
labor-power, but he cannot consume (utilize) it; the master 
alone owns the means for its consumption. The laborer to 
live must exchange this commodity for others ; but the mas- 
ter's private ownership cuts him off from all compulsory 
right of exchange. 

The master will gladly consume this labor-power, will 
permit the laborer to make the requisite exchange, only on 



THE UNEMPLOYED 77 

condition that through this exchange he, the master, shall 
acquire more of commodities than fall to the lot of the 
laborer. Out of the exchange the master must get more 
value than he parts with; the laborer must give up more 
than he receives. That is, to live the laborer must submit 
to that legalized robbery called exploitation. 

Such a condition would certainly be reprehensible even if 
the laborer were granted the right to constant employment, 
the right to be continuously robbed. What then shall we 
say of an industrial system that does not even grant him 
this right (or wrong) ? 

Since exploitation, profit to the employer, is a requisite 
to the master's granting employment, it follows that the 
question as to whether a laborer is to be granted access to, 
or be shut out from his means of life must find its answer 
in, at best, temporary industrial conditions. For it is not 
in human possibility that constancy should characterize such 
an institution as capitalism. Furthermore, that conditions 
should ever be such as to demand so much as the temporary 
employment of all labor at one time is as improbable as 
•that any heavenly body should be absolutely at rest as long 
as the law of gravitation obtains. "The unemployed we 
must always have with us" — in capitalism. 

The following interesting paragraphs are from "Pov- 
erty," by Robert Hunter. It must be noted that all dates 
herein cited are in times of prosperity when capitalism is 
at its best: 

"The accidental vagrants are the floating element of 
'the reserve of labor/ or in other words, of the unemployed 
classes. They are waiting to be used by the employer. 
Their vagrancy consists of a restless, agonizing search for 
employment. The class is a very large one. Upon the 
basis of the statistics gathered in the census of 1890, Dr. 



78 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

Washington Gladden estimates that 'there must have been 
an average of 1,139,672 persons unemployed during the 
whole of the year ending May 31, 1890/ The census of 
1900, as before stated, shows the number unemployed some 
part of the year to have been 6,468,964. Over 2,069,546 
males were unemployed from four to six months, and about 
half a million males were unemployed practically the entire 
year. If one were able to determine the proportion of these 
unemployed persons, who find it necessary to go about from 
city to city in search of employment, it would show the total 
number of accidental vagrants. The number changes from 
year to year in direct relation to the activity of industry. 

"So long as the wages of certain classes of workmen are 
only sufficient to keep them during the period when they are 
employed, so long as there is an ebb and flow of industrial 
activity, so long as certain trades employ men at certain 
seasons only, so long as those who close the factories con- 
tinue to have no responsibility for the outcast workers, so 
long as the laws of competitive industry make industrial de- 
pressions necessary, and so long as the system of industry 
demands a surplus of labor which may be but casually em- 
ployed, so long, indeed, as there is such a thing as enforced 
unemployment, — just so long will the sources of vagrancy 
be ever active. Neither artificial employments nor charity 
provision can remedy the evil. The worker is himself help- 
less. He is a wastrel, begging to be used in a competitive 
industrial system which in its present form requires his con- 
tinued existence." 

He is a wastrel begging to be used, etc. Likewise says 
Charles Booth in "Life and Labor in London:" "The 
modern system of industry will not work without some un- 
employed margin, some reserve of labor." 



THE UNEMPLOYED 79 

There are various reasons that make necessary this re- 
serve of labor : 

First. It prevents a monopoly of the commodity labor- 
power, a "cornering of the market/' as it were. It is to the 
interest of capitalists that the standard of subsistence, the 
proportion of labor's product that goes to labor, shall be 
kept as near the minimum requirement as possible; hence 
their herculean efforts to throttle any attempt at com- 
bination of the owners of that commodity who, by any sort 
of artificial means, would make it even temporarily more ex- 
pensive. Such a move on the part of laborers is trespass 
upon the capitalists' private preserves. As long as this 
reserve army is kept in the field, as long as there is a ple- 
thoric condition in the labor market, there is no imminent 
danger that the exploiters' share will suffer from excessive 
demands on the part of the sellers of labor-power. 

Recognition of the benefits of a well stocked labor 
market is by no means modern. John Bellers, who wrote in 
1696, is quoted by Marx as saying: "For if one had a hun- 
dred thousand acres of land and as many pounds in money, 
and as many cattle, without a laborer, what would the rich 
man be, but a laborer? And as the laborers make men rich, 
so the more laborers, there will be the more rich men . . . 
the labor of the poor being the mines of the rich." And in 
a like vein speaks Bernard de Mandeville at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century : 

"It would be easier, where property is well secured, to 
live without money than without poor ; for who would do the 
work? As they (the poor) ought to be kept from starving, 
so they should receive nothing worth saving. If here and 
there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry, and 
pinching his belly, lifts himself above the condition he was 
brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay, it is un- 



80 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

deniably the wisest course for every person in the society, 
and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the 
interest of all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor 
should almost never be idle, and yet continually spend what 
they get . . . Those that get their living by their daily 
labor . . . have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable 
but their wants which it is prudent to relieve, but folly to 
cure. The only thing then that can render the laboring man 
industrious is a moderate quantity of money, for as too little 
will, according as his temper is, either dispirit or make him 
desperate, so too much will make him insolent and lazy. 
. . . From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free 
nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth 
consists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides, that 
they are a never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, with- 
out them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of 
any country could be valuable. To make the society" 
(which of course consists of non-workers) "happy and peo- 
ple easier under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite 
that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as 
poor; knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, 
and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily 
his necessities may be supplied. ,, 

The candor of these gentlemen is truly refreshing. 

Second. This reserve army is at the command of the 
professional strike breaker. Times are never so prosperous 
that he cannot hurl his battalions in any required number 
upon any point where the interests of capitalists may be 
threatened. The fact that thousands may be gathered from 
the ranks of unemployed at any time and forwarded to any 
point for any purpose — men skilled in every craft — may be 
a great convenience to a capitalist under pressure of boding 
adversity ; but it is certainly a damning incident to a system 



THE UNEMPLOYED 81 

of industry assailed by an enlightened proletariat. Such a 
condition is essential to the well working of capitalist exploi- 
tation ; a knowledge of the real significance of that condition 
is a most potent element in the overthrow of the power of 
the exploiter. Abject poverty, the homeless, the vagrant, 
the pauper, the tramp, the slums with all that these imply 
are its legitimate and monstrous progeny. But that army 
is with us and its membership is constantly subjected to 
every environing element that breeds disloyalty to its class, 
crime, drunkenness, suicide, insanity and prostitution. 

Third. This reserve labor force is necessary when capi- 
talism must lead men to war. The armies of earth ever 
have been and ever must be mustered from the ranks of 
toil ; and the army of toilers on march or on field must be 
supported by other toilers on farm and in factory. The 
supply must meet emergency demands of every sort; the 
strike and the call to arms are but two of them. 

Fourth. An important species of emergency demand 
for labor is found in our institutions that call for large num- 
bers of laborers at certain times of the year. No organized 
effort is made, nor can such organization be effected in capi- 
talism, to regulate or systematize the flow of labor from one 
part of the country to another as harvesting in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, fruit packing and shipping in California, lum- 
bering in the North, cotton picking in the South, mining 
now here, now there, each calls for a large quota of workers 
for but a brief spell. A mass of laborers meets this re- 
quirement and is then turned loose to drift elsewhere. The 
laborers are needed, but it is not a function of capitalism 
to see that they do more than drift. Its chief concern is 
that a sufficient force can always be mustered to prevent 
anything extortionate by way of wages. Its confidence 
rests in that reserve of unemployed wandering workers that 



82 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

seldom fails to meet the requirements. The fact that such 
drifting is compulsory and that the filling of jails and the 
organization of chain gangs are incidental to it does not dis- 
turb the serenity of the exploiter. Many of the wanderers 
become tramps, professional tramps, but what else could 
sanity expect them to become? We cannot sow tares and 
reap turnips. 

There is another phase of this problem of the unem- 
ployed that merits serious attention. It is in review of this 
unemployed army that capitalists may well turn their faces 
in shame ; it is upon this host that capitalism does its worst. 
This army is, and throughout all history has been, the down- 
trodden of earth. It enlisted the ignorant and debased into 
whose life there gleamed not a ray of hope for betterment of 
condition. And while ignorance and debasement predomi- 
nated in its ranks, it was never a serious menace to any 
ruling, exploiting power. But 

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out." 

Excessive fineness of distillation is not necessary in this in- 
stance of evil to learn that the "soul of goodness" lies in 
the certainty that in this army, rapidly recruiting as it is 
today with a quality and quantity of troops such as it never 
before mustered, is read the doom of labor exploitation — 
the overthrow of capitalism. In this horror so long essen- 
tial to the successful plundering of the poor lay the dwarf 
that is now rapidly developing into a giant who will raze the 
pillars of his prison and go forth a freeman. "Retributive 
justice," say you? Nay, that would be impossible. At best 
but a fraction of those responsible for the condition we are 
considering could be reached by any sort of punitive meas- 
ures ; and again, reader, if you are an American citizen who 
by your exercise of the franchise upholds the present indus- 



THE UNEMPLOYED 83 

trial system — who votes any brand of capitalist ticket — you 
would have to be numbered among the guilty. Nor is that 
the spirit in which to approach so momentous a proposition. 
The passing of capitalism is not a retributive measure ; it 
is the evolutionary culminating of a great historic epoch of 
civilization and the ushering in of Socialism as its natural 
and logical successor. 

This army of laborers subject to the fitful, alternating 
periods of work and no work incident to capitalism is abso- 
lutely and relatively on the increase in every land of earth 
where modern machinery is installed. 

A labor-saving is also a labor-displacing machine ; and 
millions are they who have left workshop, farm, factory and 
mine as some mechanical device rendered their hand work 
and more primitive methods obsolete. Bitter and futile has 
been the strife in effort to bar or dislodge the intruder.* On 
occasions the opposing laborers met with some degree of 
success, but it was always temporary. A more economic 
method of producing things could not be permanently ex- 
cluded and the machine smashers, as a matter of course, 
were forced to evacuate. 

In some instances the installation of labor-competing 
and displacing inventions has been rapid and the havoc 
wrought among the affected marked and wide-spread; in 
other cases the dislodgment was slow but not the less sure.t 



*Abbe Lancellotti (1579) says: "Anthony Mutter of Danzig 
saw, about 50 years ago, in that town, a very ingenious (ribbon) 
machine, which weaves 4 to 6 pieces at once. But the Mayor being 
apprehensive that this invention might throw a large number of 
workmen on the street, caused the inventor to be secretly strangled 
or drowned." Quoted by Marx, page 428. 

t "History discloses no tragedy more horrible than the gradual 
extinction of the English hand-loom weavers, an extinction that was 
spread over several decades, and finally sealed in 1838. Many of 
them died of starvation, many with families vegetated for a long 
time on 2%d a day."— Marx: "Capital," page 431. 



84 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

If capitalism had not afforded (or been favored by) some 
compensating conditions for this chronic plague of displace- 
ment of laborers, it would have totally failed long ago. 

One of the most inexhaustible of these conditions lay in 
the vast, fertile and unsettled region of the New World and 
especially of this continent. There lay an asylum for the 
millions and thither they went. Westward this vast army 
wended its way blazing the course of empire in its route. It 
scaled the Appalachians and swarmed over the vast plains of 
the Mississippi, Missouri and Platte. It invaded the mighty 
mountains of the West and thronged on the shores of the 
Pacific. No other such movement has been witnessed for 
centuries, nor does human history record its equal in both 
magnitude and time. 

Another condition that favored capitalism was inherent 
in the inventions that came with such startling rapidity. 
They paved the way for, they called into being new and im- 
mense industries. The demand for implements, machinery 
and transporting facilities for the development of resources 
in both old and new territory was so vast that it baffles com- 
putation. Its manufacture and transportation, like the un- 
developed continent, furnished a vast vent for what would 
otherwise have been a deluged and unsupportable labor 
market. 

A third source of absorption of the laborers displaced by 



In our own country, at a time when there was less pretext for 
such action than in any country in Europe, the installation of such 
devices as Howe's sewing machine and McCormick's reaper and 
mower met most bitter and organized opposition; in numerous in- 
stances with the actual smashing of the machines by the displaced 
laborers. More recent instances are found in savage war waged 
(in England) by the Sheffield file-cutters, in 1865; and the prolonged 
and bitter strife and strikes in this country, that grew out of the 
introduction of machine methods for unloading vessels especially 
along the Great Lakes. 



THE UNEMPLOYED 85 

machinery lay in a servant system that naturally followed 
the amassing of great fortunes. This demand for attend- 
ants upon the rich absorbed tens of thousands directly from 
the labor market and converted them into an army of hang- 
ers-on, lackeys, performing every sort of menial service that 
ever fell to the lot of slave or serf. The labor market of 
capitalism may well be thankful as its exploiters parade over 
the world, or people their mansions, with trains of attend- 
ants. Such servility may be humiliating, debasing, but bet- 
ter that than the slums or the anguish of the crowded marts 
of the toilers. 

Tens of thousands more found employment in supply- 
ing material for the lavish displays of the ever increasing 
number of the wealthy — a display commensurate with the 
swelling volume of their holdings. This squandering of 
labor's product by the rich has ever been regarded as a 
blessing to the toiler. "It furnishes lots of work; what do 
we care what they do with their possessions?" are words 
that have come from the lips of millions. The same quality 
and degree of blessing would be labor's if the produce were 
thrown into the sea. And yet, in capitalism, such disgust- 
ing utterances are true. Likewise it is true that fortune 
favors labor when billions of dollars' worth of its product 
vanish as flames sweep over a Chicago or a San Francisco. 
In the necessity for rebuilding the city lies labor's oppor- 
tunity. All this, however, does not qualify the boast that 
our industrial system, our stewardship of wealth, is the 
acme of sanity and progressiveness, an institution such as 
only divine wisdom could bestow. 

The dissipation of laborers in great wars was a very con- 
siderable means for relieving the over-stocked labor market. 
Our own great conflict cost about a million such lives ; and 
the wasted labor-product of such a conflict would doubtless 



86 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

furnish employment for a term of years for half as many 
more. 

But despite the absorption of machine-displaced laborers 
by every institution possible to capitalism, the hosts of un- 
employed or partially employed was ever on the increase. 
With the extension of machinery to and beyond what cir- 
cumstances would justify, with the absorbing continent fill- 
ing to every pore, a death-dealing condition inherent in capi- 
talism developed to astounding proportions. The exploiting 
class soon learned that the part of labor's product that fell 
to them was in excess of what they could consume. If this 
excess could not in some way be disposed of, if it were to 
remain on their hands thus reducing or nullifying necessity 
for further production, at least two serious consequences 
must result: first, the unemployed army would soon swell 
to intolerable and uncontrollable proportions ; second, the ex- 
ploiters' resources, or annual returns, would be seriously if 
not fatally impaired. And they might have added, capital- 
ism itself would be swamped by conditions of its own de- 
veloping. An outlet must be found for this unconsumable 
surplus ; it must be disposed of in other lands. There was 
no possible escape from necessity for development of for- 
eign commerce; no escape from the quest for foreign 
market. 

As long as these markets could be found and occupied, 
as long as the surplus could be dumped upon other shores, 
it meant the escape from starvation for labor and the further 
filling of the coffers of the exploiter — "a consummation de- 
voutly to be wished." It was in these foreign markets that 
capitalism found and still finds its last possible refuge; 
there lies its only saving grace. Material extension of all 
other sources of vent for the labor market — sources that 
have served capitalism and served it well — cannot longer 



THE UNEMPLOYED 87 

meet the requirements of the masses of labor. The present 
system of industry has already passed that point in its 
career. The foreign market must be kept open or capital- 
ism is doomed. 

In other words, capitalism must provide its laborers an 
opportunity to acquire a living — must keep them employed to 
the subsistence point — or its failure and the consequent ne- 
cessity for its overthrow are self-evident. Without the for- 
eign market such provision is impossible; because, for in- 
stance, a fraction of American laborers can, in modern con- 
ditions, supply their own subsistence and all that the Ameri- 
can exploiters can consume. Then what of the other frac- 
tion of the laboring mass? They possess but one com- 
modity, labor-power — the power to produce things, to pro- 
duce abundantly — but they are (and in present conditions 
must be) totally deprived of opportunity to utilize that com- 
modity — to consume it or exchange it for things consumable. 
The means for its utilization are private property and an 
invasion of such preserves, even to ward off starvation, even 
to sustain life itself, is treason against the most sacred rights 
bestowed upon man. 

In such circumstances there are but three possible 
courses for the laboring masses to pursue. First. Submit 
to the process of elimination of the surplus laborers through 
starvation. Second. Combine, and compel capitalism (if 
they could secure the power to do so) to employ all to the 
subsistence point through a shift system that would shorten 
the hours constituting a day's work to a fraction of the pres- 
ent number, without either reduction of the nominal wage 
(the money wage) or an increase of the cost of living. 
That is, set the price of the commodity labor-power, compel 
its consumption, and maintain the purchasing power of its 
price by fixing the prices of all other commodities through 



88 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

legislative action. Third. They may take possession of the 
nation's sources of subsistence, exclude the exploiter as an 
industrial factor, let all share in useful labor and each enjoy 
that part of the social product to which his individual effort 
entitles him. 

The first of these propositions implies a condition of 
physical and mental servitude and inferiority, a degradation 
of manhood, a fetish worship that might in earlier times, 
in the darker ages of thought, have been imposed upon hu- 
manity. But the day of its imposition is passed. Human 
environment is not now the composite that develops that sort 
of slave, that species of "loyalty to authority." We reject 
it as impossible, as unworthy of serious contemplation. 

The second proposition is characterized by equal or even 
greater absurdity than the first. We have already given 
it attention (page 50), already eliminated it. To assume 
that the masses of labor in this nation or in any other great 
power would acquire sufficient intelligence and cohesiveness 
to wage such a war as would be a requisite preliminary to 
the establishment of such a regime; to assume that they 
would attain the mental status necessary to what would 
practically be the overturning of the present system ; to 
assume that they would organize, capture the powers of 
government and crowd the exploiters into subordination ; to 
assume all this and then still further assume that the intel- 
ligence necessary to its fulfillment would not, long before the 
consummation of such a routine of action, discern the non- 
necessity for the exploiter in industry and dispose of him 
entirely exceeds the bounds of any system of logic that 
merits even momentary investigation. No, when the prob- 
lem of the unemployed calls for such drastic action as this 
second proposition implies, no such bickering and tinkering 
with an industrial system in effort solely to retain the non- 



THE UNEMPLOYED 89 

essential exploiter will be indulged. When labor musters for 
such an organized fight it will not be checked at the nine- 
tenths post. With less expenditure of effort than such a 
protracted campaign would require, properly directed, it will 
cover the entire course. 

The third proposition — the elimination of the exploiter as 
an industrial factor; the abolition of the right of private 
property in the sources of our being ; the granting of access 
to the means of production to all who desire to produce and, 
its corollary, the right of private property in labor's product 
to the extent of the full social equivalent of one's own labor 
either mental or manual; the right to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness that can be secured only through the 
right of access to the sources of that life, liberty and happi- 
ness ; the establishment of justice and the abrogation of the 
privilege to plunder and enslave — in that proposition is im- 
bedded such a degree of fairness, humanity, practicability 
and necessity as appeals to every enlightened manhood the 
world over. It is in support of this proposition that the mil- 
lions are aligning ; it is in this they rest their only hope for 
world progress. 

But what of the foreign market ? Why will that not con- 
tinue to serve the purposes of capitalism? There are vari- 
ous reasons why it will not. In the first place capitalism is 
world wide. The conditions that have been so rapidly matur- 
ing in the United States are to a greater or less degree 
matured in all civilized nations. The machine is doing its 
work of displacement and augmenting the productiveness of 
labor in England and in Europe to an extent second only, if 
second at all, to that in this country. The foreign market 
is just as much (and in the case of Great Britain more) of 
an absolute requisite to each of a number of great nations 
as to ours. Capitalism is similarly developed in and com- 



90 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

mon to them all and consequently so are its problems. China 
and more especially Japan so long a fertile field for foreign 
exploitation are passing at a bound from industrial barbarism 
to highly developed capitalism. They are already rapping 
at the world's doors for admission to foreign markets so 
vigorously that the nations gaze in wonderment. And so 
it is becoming everywhere that any people of proportions 
sufficient to be of any consequence as a market are, on the 
contrary, listing themselves as competitors for the little that 
remains for all. 

If the United States could have absolute sway over some 
vast foreign territory, capitalism with us might for a goodly 
number of years be reasonably safe from embarrassing con- 
ditions in her labor market; but there is about as much 
prospect for such an endowment on this country as for one 
grocery store's being granted the privilege by common con- 
sent of monopoly of some large city. So coveted are the 
market remnants that are now obtainable that the great 
powers are vying in construction of iron monsters and other 
enginery of war capable of wresting privilege from any too 
successful or less thoroughly equipped competitor. 

Nor can capitalist countries long hold as a foreign 
market any territory inhabited by any sort of an intelligent 
people for any kind of commodities that can be produced 
within that territory. Our own country is a good foreign 
market for producers of tea, coffee, silks, tropical fruits and 
a few such articles for whose production our climate is not 
well adapted ; but outside of these, we have little use for the 
products of other peoples. 

For commodities that are purely surplus, a country whose 
industries are already developed is practically no market at 
all. Attention must be called to the significance of that 
term "surplus" as here used. It means what is left of our 



THE UNEMPLOYED 91 

labor product after our people as a whole have consumed 
all that in existing conditions they can consume. We may, 
for instance, trade great quantities of steel product with 
France for silks and consume the silk. In that case we 
have consumed our steel product just as completely as if 
we had directly appropriated it to our own use. But after 
we have done all our trading with countries that have devel- 
oped industries not adapted to our country and have con- 
sumed whatever we got in exchange and all that we can of 
our own production, there still remains a surplus uncon- 
sumable. This we must sell to nations with undeveloped 
industries and take in payment some sort of securities. In 
other words, such trade gets that people into our debt; 
through such trade we acquire financial interest in that 
country — ownership in her railroads, factories, etc. This is 
soon followed by ambition to build and own more of her 
railroads and factories. These furnish an opening for in- 
vestment of some of our surplus capital where it will yield 
good returns — a policy we are now following in China and 
other parts of the East. In short, her resources are being 
developed and instead of being longer a market for our 
surplus she has a surplus of her own. 

How natural then in capitalism is the bitter strife for 
control of the markets of a people with undeveloped re- 
sources; such as Japan was recently, as China to a great 
degree still is and as are the Philippines and some Asiatic 
and South American territory. If a people are fairly pro- 
gressive, as Japan and China, they, for a time, open a vast 
market for machinery of all sorts; but the importation of 
such things soon closes them as a surplus market entirely. 
We soon find them competitors elsewhere, not purchasers 
at home. 

It follows, then, that as the nations of earth develop 



92 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

their resources — and they are doing so at a most marvelous 
rate — they constantly augment the unconsumable surplus of 
the capitalist world and at the same time diminish the ter- 
ritory that formerly offered a possible market Like a de- 
creasing variable whose limit is zero, that market approaches 
its limit. 

But capitalism is doomed long before that limit is 
reached. An unconsumable, unsalable surplus means an 
unemployed host; that means bitter strife among sellers of 
labor-power for an opportunity to dispose of that com- 
modity ; that means a reduction of the standard of living, a 
reduction of the part of labor's product that goes to the 
producer; which in turn means a reduced power of laborers 
to consume and that means an augmenting of the unsalable 
surplus and so on and on. The capitalist system is rapidly 
and of necessity strangling itself; or, 'twere better to say, is 
rapidly forcing laborers into such condition that they will be 
compelled to strangle it in self-defense. 

It seems superfluous to call attention to so self-evident a 
fact as that this army of unemployed with all its degrada- 
tion and suffering; its debarment from access to its sources 
of life ; the surplus product with all its attendant evils ; that 
all these conditions are due to one circumstance and one 
only — the private ownership of our nation's, yes, and the 
world's sources of subsistence — due to the circumstance that 
industries are not built up for the purpose of supplying the 
needs of man, but as a medium for exploiting human labor, 
for the making of millionaires. 

In a system of collective ownership the industries would 
be operated and resources developed solely to supply the 
needs of humanity. Access to them (to the jobs that con- 
stitute them) would be free. A desire to labor would imply 
a desire to enjoy, to consume the social equivalent of that 



THE UNEMPLOYED 93 

labor. With a proper adjustment of the returns for labor, 
a surplus would be impossible ; but if such a contingency 
should arise, the extra product would belong to the pro- 
ducers and not to exploiters, would be a blessing and not as 
now a curse. Unemployment and consequently poverty 
would be voluntary, self-inflicted. If one desired to work 
more than another it would be because he desired in one 
way or another to consume more of the things of life. That 
should certainly be his right and privilege. No danger of 
one's getting too much from his own labor. And what mat- 
ters it how much one possessed so long as it were not a 
source of the subsistence of others, so long as he could not 
use it for labor exploitation — so long as he could not make 
of it a medium through which to enslave humanity? In 
such a system if one owned a mansion its possession would 
be absolute evidence that he worked for it — that society got 
its equivalent out of him ; in capitalism, its possession is 
ample evidence that in some manner the owner worked 
others for it — that he got it out of society without rendering 
an equivalent. He may have acquired the property through 
inheritance ; or through some unearned increment— the aug- 
mentation of one's wealth due to the improvement of ad- 
jacent properties or the settling up and improving of a com- 
munity ; or through some sort of speculation or sharp deal- 
ing — in many ways except through the process of actually 
producing useful things. 

In this problem of the unemployed capitalism faces its 
finish. Were it not for this, wealth might concentrate and 
its attendant corruption increase in like proportion; the 
nation might rot as did the ancient empires and as our 
country is now rapidly rotting. But today labor is superior 
in intellect, is better trained mentally, has a much more inti- 
mate knowledge of matters pertaining to government, 



94 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

natural science, sociology and history than had the workers 
of former periods. They are the product of a very different 
environment from that in which any others ever lived. They 
are rapidly learning what the machine is doing for them (or 
to them) while it is held as private property. They are 
learning (capitalism is thrusting the knowledge upon them) 
that the present system of industry must be totally replaced 
by a system of collective ownership of our nation's resources. 
Nothing could be more plainly inevitable than necessity for 
this change of system. It is that, or, its only alternative, the 
destruction of what we know as civilization — a thought too 
loathsome for lodgment in the brain of any but a savage. 

But such change can be wrought only by an organized 
effort on the part of those to whom the present system is 
intolerable — the producing, exploited masses and all others 
who are moved by a sense of justice and reason and a 
humanitarian spirit. 

These are rapidly arraying as an economic class with this 
one great object in view, to take possession of the industries 
of earth and operate them for the general good and benefit 
of mankind — to eliminate the exploiter from industry. 

Here then are the conditions that confront the world : 

1. The present system of industry makes imperative its 
own dissolution. 

2. That dissolution must be wrought by those who are 
not the beneficiaries of the capitalist system. 

3. Then there must inevitably follow an increased 
struggle for possession of our sources of subsistence. 

That struggle is of necessity between the present pos- 
sessors on the one hand, and, on the other, the dispossessed 
combined with those who discern the inevitable trend of 
civilization and those who read the doom of their posses- 
sions in the rising sun of the billionaires. 



THE UNEMPLOYED 95 

This is the class struggle — a condition not made by an) 
man or set of men ; but a condition evolved out of a system 
of industry as naturally as effect ever followed cause. That 
a struggle is inevitable is as patent as that power once vested 
is never voluntarily surrendered. In the language of John 
Clark Ridpath: "The privileged classes of mankind have 
no conscience on the subject of their privilege. History 
does not adduce one instance in which a nobility or even a 
monopoly, entrenched in precedent and custom, has ever 
voluntarily made restitution to society of the rights of which 
she had been despoiled. The iron jaws which close on the 
marrowy bone of privilege never relax until they iare 
broken." Those who know enough of history and of human 
hoggishness to know that this is true and that the jaws of 
capitalism must be loosened from their marrowy bone are 
class conscious. They realize the inevitability of this great 
economic-class struggle. The word, so far as it enters the 
Socialist vocabulary, has no other meaning. This struggle 
is not born of personal dissatisfaction, nor of hate, nor of 
love of or desire for strife. It has its origin and its susten- 
ance solely in necessity born of economic evolution. What 
thoughtlessness, or ignorance, or willful attempt to deceive, 
then, is apparent in the rantings of the capitalist advocate 
or politician who denounces as enemies of mankind and pro- 
moters of hate and violence all who call the attention of 
their fellows to this great scientific fact. 

The class struggle is on and was taking definite shape 
in the conduct of tens of thousands of Americans decades 
ago who had never heard such a designation of their doings. 
The formation of capitalist combines and associations and of 
national-wide labor unions was with us its first formal ex- 
pression, the inception of an organized movement toward 
the most momentous revolution ever conceived by human 



96 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

brain. And yet, underlying it all, is that simple demand for 
justice, a demand so in accord with our most fundamental 
conceptions of human rights that none in reason dare gain- 
say it : "To the laborers shall belong the product of their 
creation." 



VIII. 

PANICS. 

Of all the monstrosities of capitalism none is more con- 
spicuous or more terrible than that known as a panic. In 
the regular course of nature the rainfall varies in any lo- 
cality and in some more than in others. Practically 
all parts of the earth are more or less subject to famine, 
In some localities these variations are excessive, and as 
a consequence, millions starve, a large per cent of them even 
starve to death. Famine is as natural as the shifting of the 
wind and in the early conditions of the race so was its 
deadly work. Our savage and barbarous ancestors suffered, 
starved and died solely because it was impossible to procure 
sufficient to keep body and soul together. It is left for civ- 
ilization to develop the artificial conditions in which our- 
selves suffer and starve and die because we are so abun- 
dantly able to produce every requirement of life. 

Incongruous, absurd and awful as seems such a charge 
against civilization, that very condition — -starving in the 
midst of plenty, starving because of plenty, starving because 
of unused, idle means for preventing want — is a regular visi- 
tant to capitalist countries. Such a condition is intermit- 
tently foisted upon us as a consequence of an industrial 
system whose power to perpetuate itself is lodged in the 



PANICS 97 

ignorance, thoughtlessness, fetich worshp of one class and 
the avarice and dominance of another. 

In the United States are the greatest number of fertile 
acres in any civilized country on earth. We have as rich or 
richer and more extensive mines of every metal than any 
other land and the way paved to their deposits. We have 
developed the richest and most extensive oil fields in the 
world. In a word, our natural resources are far in excess of 
any demand upon them. In the second place we have a 
greater amount of machinery than is used in any other coun- 
try in the world and its productiveness is certainly exceeded 
by none anywhere on earth. Thirdly, we have laborers of 
every required number and of every requisite degree of skill. 
Fourthly, we have brain sufficient to guide all the muscle 
and all the machinery to the limit of each in supplying the 
wants of man. 

In such conditions, if every want is not supplied, if in- 
voluntary suffering from poverty exists, if any are in need 
who are willing to work, it is evidence absolute of a fatal 
defect in matters industrial. That defect is not due to any 
lack of means for supplying human needs. Then there is 
left but one thing possible to which it can be attributed — 
lack of proper organization on the part of society, organiza- 
tion based upon the interests and welfare of its members. 

Our mighty means for supplying every want become, in 
the capitalist system of industry, a means for our industrial 
undoing; a means for subjecting a great mass of mankind 
to enforced poverty, idleness, vice and crime. Nor in the 
present regime can such consequences be avoided. 

Attention has already been called to the displacement of 
laborers by machines and to the fact that capitalism would 
ere now have wrought its own undoing had not certain at- 
tendant circumstances opened avenues of escape. It was 



98 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

furthermore shown that the conditions attending the rise of 
capitalism called for vast factories, the opening of mines, the 
manufacture of great quantities of machinery, the building 
of steamships and railways, in short, the construction and 
installation of new and vast means for carrying on the work 
of the world. And these requirements were of such degree 
relative to the number of displaced laborers as can never 
again be afforded in this or any other land. 

It is worthy of especial note that millions of laborers 
have been employed in this vast task of construction and ex- 
tension of labor-saving devices and with every increase came 
a relatively augmented production. Labor consumed the 
part that fell to its lot — furnished a never failing market for 
its share of the product. But there was ever an increasing 
volume of produce that the exploiters must consume or sell 
in other lands. There constantly obtained an increasing re- 
quirement for foreign markets, the stability of industry in- 
creasingly depended upon the ability of the exploiters to 
dispose of their surpluses in non-developed countries. 

At every stage in this vast process of development when 
construction and extension and consequently production had 
outgrown the demands of the hour, an undisposable surplus 
necessarily accumulated. Then there was nothing left for 
capitalism to do but to stop the wheels of industry — stop pro- 
ducing until some disposition could be made of the burden- 
some surplus. The factories, mills and mines had to be 
closed, thus disqualifying labor for the scant market that at 
best it affords and increasing dependence upon the consum- 
ing power of the exploiters and foreigners. Labor must 
wait, must suffer from hunger and idleness, until what it 
had produced in such abundance could be consumed by 
others. A panic was on. 

The construction and extension periods when labor is 



PANICS 99 

building up for its own certain future undoing are known 
as "periods of prosperity"; and the regular alternation be- 
tween these "good times" and their consequent years of de- 
pression and stagnation are as natural in capitalism as the 
greed of the exploiter. 

Again with every increase in the productiveness of labor, 
came an increase in the actual and relative volume of pro- 
duce that fell to the share of the exploiters. That meant 
increased profits or dividends and that called for increased 
volume of stocks and bonds. Practically speaking, every $4 
(or even less) that can be assured in dividends means the 
retention at par value of a $100 certificate of stock. In 
"prosperous times" these dividends run high and the stocks 
issued upon them run higher. Speculation and gambling 
in these paper representatives of wealth, real or mythical, 
run riot as long as there is a fair prospect of dividends or of 
stock dispositions. Their excesses outrun even that of pro- 
duction in industry and when the accumulating surplus of 
produce begins to manifest itself, when sales are not keeping 
pace with the market supply, these gamblers are the first 
to realize what it means. Then follows a wild stampede to 
unload such stocks as must soon feel the biting effect of 
what must follow — depression in business. Such a stampede 
means a slump in stock values, bankruptcy of gamblers and 
brokers, calls for money loaned, restriction of ability to 
borrow, the hoarding of cash, money stringency, in short, a 
financial crisis. There is nothing surprising in the fact that 
an approaching period of depression such as must follow the 
accumulation of an undisposable surplus of produce should 
first manifest itself in the financial centers. In fact, it would 
be surprising were it otherwise. But back of all the finan- 
cial flurries and crises is the great world of production and 
exchange of commodities. While that world is in normal 



100 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

condition, while that will guarantee dividends, there is no 
danger of a general panic emanating from the financial cen- 
ters. When, however, that mighty world market assumes a 
threatening aspect, the few financiers of great holdings have 
the country at their mercy. They can crush at a single 
blow not only the financial world but the industrial as well 
into bankruptcy, idleness and stagnation. And this they 
do as mercilessly as a tiger crushes its prey. It's their way 
of "getting from under" — get the other fellow under. 

Financial flurries and crises may be purely local and tem- 
porary as they often are — may grow out of an overheated 
contest between bulls and bears at any time ; but an indus- 
trial panic has a very different basis and can never be so 
circumscribed. In fact, so thoroughly world wide is capi- 
talism, so alike dependent are all the developed nations upon 
dispositon of their surpluses, that industrial panics are now 
of necessity as wide in their awful work as capitalism. 
When the market conditions stop production on the part of 
the laborers of the United States, those of the other leading 
powers soon join the ranks of the unemployed. 

It is during these crises in industry that the unemployed 
problem assumes its most menacing proportions. The pri- 
vately owned industries cannot then be operated at a profit 
to the exploiter and therefore they cannot be operated at all. 
The fires are quenched, the great machinery lies dead. The 
fact that these concerns are the source of life-sustenance to 
the vast body of laborers is of no concern to the owners. 
Labor stands ready to produce its own living and more, far 
more, and there lie the means for doing so and the only 
means ; but this is not a considerable circumstance with the 
private possessor. The producers may starve and die in 
sight of plenty and with every required means at hand for 
producing more. It matters not; those things were con- 



PANICS 101 

structed for the purpose of making profit, as a medium 
through which to exploit labor, and when they cannot fulfil 
that requirement they shall remain w 7 ith barred doors. And 
labor casts one longing, lingering look upon them and turns 
sadly away. 

A laborer of any intelligence feels and knows that he 
and his fellow wage workers include all that are necessary 
to run any of those institutions from janitor to manager and 
salesman ; that the drawer of dividends on the stock of the 
concern who may seldom or never see the factory or institu- 
tion and who ordered it closed, is no more essential to its 
supplying the needs of man than he will be when he is dead. 
Yet so intense is labor's worship of the fetich, private prop- 
erty, that many will starve rather than so much as vote for 
the orderly and peaceful replacement of such a system by 
one in which they could not be denied access to the sources 
of their being. But 'twill not always be thus. Labor is 
learning a great lesson ; the panic is a fountain of inspiring 
thought. 

Whether the panic that broke with such fury upon us in 
November, 1907, can ever fully pass, whether the condition 
that capitalists call "general prosperity" can ever again be 
established is an open question. To revive those conditions, 
labor must again return to its work ; and what is it going to 
do ? The vast field of extension and construction, the build- 
ing of machinery, factories and railways is practically closed. 
We have more now than can be safely used ; then why con- 
tinue to build? Without this work this army of builders are 
idle unless they be turned into producers of commodities for 
immediate exchange; and that implies a greater demand 
both at home and abroad than ever before. Upon what can 
we base justification for hope of a return of prosperity? 

Some of the great captains of industry and finance tell 



102 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

us that our standard of living is too high, that wages must 
be reduced in order that production may be cheapened. 
That means, if it means anything, that whereas labor now 
receives one-fifth of the product, it must in the future be 
content with one-sixth or less. In that condition, labor is 
even a more wretched market than now and the surplus must 
be accordingly augmented. If it means that wages must be 
reduced solely for the purpose of reducing prices generally 
in like ratio, then there is no reduction in either real wages 
or standard of living. The possible further conquest of for- 
eign market through the medium of cheap products may be 
the incentive to such desires ; but if labor's standard of living 
is really to be reduced, the loss of market at home would 
doubtless more than offset any gain abroad. Capitalism is 
certainly lining up "between the devil and the deep sea." 

But grant the possibility of successful conquest of for- 
eign market and what follows? We get the market by 
wresting it from others. Our success means the defeat of 
others ; the laborers in the land of our unsuccessful competi- 
tor are forced into the army of the unemployed and finally 
to a standard of living below ours in effort to regain their 
lost prestige. Then, in turn, another reduction on our part ? 
And all this that parasites may, at least for a brief period, 
continue their privileges to plunder? Possibly so, but not 
unless judgment shall have "fled to brutish beasts and men 
have lost their reason." To what condition of servitude are 
\Ve doomed in order that we may retain our blessed plutoc- 
racy? Or will humanity awaken to the real demands of the 
hour and turn the exploiters as such adrift? 

Lest some capitalistic reader should question the authen- 
ticity of this outline of the cause of panics and classify this 
version of the outcome of our industrial conditions and 
institutions as gloomy and pessimistic, it is well here to 



PANICS 103 

introduce a capitalist authority by way of confirmation and 
contrast. 

On March 1, 1907, Hon. Leslie M. Shaw while Secretary 
of the United States Treasury under President Roosevelt, 
delivered a lecture to the students and faculty of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. It must be kept in mind while perusing 
his words that they were uttered during what was univer- 
sally held by capitalists to be a period of unparallelled pros- 
perity and about seven months before the panic broke with 
such force and disaster upon us ; that they were spoken by a 
high government official and in the presence of one of the 
most intensely critical audiences that it is any man's privi- 
lege to address ; and that he knew that his words would be 
given as wide a circulation as anything that he could possibly 
utter. Thoughtless, reckless expression is not consistent 
with such conditions. Among other things Mr. Shaw 
told us: 

"The time is coming when the manufactories will out- 
grow the country, and men by the hundreds of thousands 
will be turned out of the factories. That in itself is not so 
bad, but when we realize that we pay out in wages as much 
as all the rest of the world put together, we begin to see the 
seriousness of the situation. 

"The factories are multiplying faster than our trade, and 
we will shortly have a surplus, with no one abroad to buy, 
and with no one at home to absorb it, because the laborer 

has not been paid enough to buy back what he created 

What will happen then ? Why, these men will be turned out 
of the factories. Thousands of them — hundreds of thou- 
sands. They will find themselves without food. Then will 
come the great danger to the country, for these men will be 
hard to deal with." 

Evidently Mr. Shaw is thoroughly conversant with the 



104 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

cause of panics and is not likely to be mislead by learned 
dissertations upon "lost confidence," "approaching elections/' 
"a species of universal mania or insanity," "sun spots/' etc. 
He finds a real cause in our overgrown factories, our surplus 
product with no one abroad to buy and no one at home to 
absorb it, and finally, the cause of all the causes, "because 
the laborer has not been paid enough to buy back what HE 
created." From such a capitalist authority such an admis- 
sion is refreshing. But how is Mr. Shaw going to retain 
the capitalist system of industry and pay labor enough to 
buy back what it creates? As that is a self-evident impos- 
sibility, it is doubtless Mr. Shaw's conviction that the sys- 
tem has about served its usefulness. His subsequent re- 
marks further confirm this inference. 

So much for Mr. Shaw's version of the cause of panics. 
He is certainly in accord with authority on that matter. 
Now for his version of the blessings that are to be ours as 
the legitimate and natural consequences of the system of 
industry for which his political party stands sponsor. On 
this all important point he says : "The last century was the 
worst in the world's history for wars. I look to see this 
century bring out the greatest conflict ever waged in the 
world. It will be a war for markets, and all the nations of 
the world will be in the fight as they are all after the same 
markets for the surplus of their factories." 

Did ever a more shocking, revolting utterance fall from 
tongue or pen? As one contemplates the awful significance 
of those words, it requires but little attuning of the ear to 
hear the applause they awakened in hell. 

He is addressing hundreds, possibly thousands of young 
men, and as he casts their horoscope we read: Train well 
both mind and body. You may contemplate a life of useful- 
ness, of praiseworthy service to humanity. You will soon 



PANICS 105 

be undeceived. Capitalism has destined you for slaughter 
as certainly as it has the cattle in yonder yards. The 
strength and endurance of your manhood is to be tested by 
the sword; the keenness of your vision by its certainty in 
landing the deadly missle. Think you that you hear the 
applause of a grateful people for your splendid service in 
alleviating human suffering, in ameliorating human condi- 
tions? Deluded youths, that is the sound of gushing blood 
from the body of a slain "enemy" whom you have never 
personally met or heard of and against whom you have no 
cause for grievance. Capitalism must have a market for 
labor's product that it is unable otherwise to squander and 
you are destined a sacrifice upon that alter. Go like men to 
meet your appointed doom. 

And mothers, what says he to you? There stands 
your splendid boy. You went down to the very gates of 
death that he might be. You have cherished him with a 
love beyond compare. And to what avail ? That he may 
join with millions of his fellows in the universal slaughter 
of his brothers. Carnage world wide; scenes over which 
the demons of hell will gloat — this is where he must play 
his part. He has produced a vast store of the things 
necessary to make life worth living. He has been rob- 
bed of the major portion of that product; and in order 
that the bandits may successfully dispose of their loot, 
he must join in the slaughter of all whose life's interests 
may bar the gates of the market. The bandits have no 
claim to that mart; it is in other lands and the heritage 
of another race. It matters not. With the passport of a 
declaration of war countersigned by the strong arm of 
a conquering host, they will seal their right through might 
in the blood of its defenders. 

Fathers, you and your grandsires have withstood the 



106 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

horrors of war that this land might be free; that it 
might be a land of noble sons and a splendid manhood. 
When your work was done, the prospect shone with 
bright hopes. To what purpose all this? That we might 
attain power to sweep the seas of their commerce; to 
crush with murderous iron heel the fruits of centuries of 
toil of muscle and brain ; to destroy civilization the world 
over, hoary with age and teeming with progress. And 
why? That exploiters may carry on their work of plun- 
dering; that a relatively few may revel in the luxuries 
that other hands produced; that they may find market 
for goods that are needed at home — needed by those who 
created them. 

Universal carnage, universal slaughter — this, then, is 
the prospect, the certainty that capitalism lays before hu- 
manity; this is its logical and necessary outcome. And 
all for markets of which we would stand in no need were 
it not for the exploiters of human labor — the despoilers 
of earth. This, then, is the ripened fruit that blossoms in 
a panic. Here is capitalism's solution of the problem of 
the unemployed. 

The fullness of meaning of the quoted words is not 
upon us until we contemplate the fact that if capitalism 
is to obtain, these awful utterances are true. That hide- 
ous system can have no other outcome. Such progeny, 
such monstrosities are its natural and legitimate offspring. 

But where is the psychologist, or criminologist, or 
naturalist who can analyze, or classify the status, or 
quality, or species of mind that can comprehend as clearly 
as does this man the causes that breed such appalling 
effects and still says to his countrymen that it is their 
duty as American citizens to support to the utmost of 



PANICS 107 

their ability a political organization whose sole function 
is to uphold such a system of industry ? Why does he court 
the powers that are inevitably hurling us into such an abyss ? 
He has told us that the panic must come and why it must 
come; and it came and for just the reason that he speci- 
fied. Then, as if to emphasize his discernment of things 
as they are, he goes still farther and says: "One great 
source of danger is in the unearned increment of our 
wealth. I admit that I have profited by that source my- 
self, but I realize now that it is all wrong. I remember 
the first time I was guilty of getting something for noth- 
ing. I bought a piece of land in Iowa and sold it in a 
short time for a large advance. I admit that those dol- 
lars 'looked good' to me then. Now I know that no last- 
ing good can come from the possession of wealth that is 
not earned. " 

No good can come from such possessions and he has 
told us of the terrible harm and disaster that is naturally 
born of such holdings. Yet he still insists that we 
should support the political organizations whose sole 
function is to foster such acquisitions and defend their 
possession as the most sacred right of man. Private prop- 
erty in our sources of subsistence is, as has already been 
shown, vested in unearned increments of various types, 
and the product of his land speculation is but one of them. 
Would he dare hold that the dividends and profits — the 
billions— out of which labor is exploited are any less un- 
earned than were those dollars that "looked good" to him 
then but are now troubling his conscience? Possibly, 
for a man's economic interests commonly make him see in 
many directions not indicated on conscience's index. 

Evidence of the failure of capitalism to meet the re- 



108 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

quirements of twentieth century civilization is every- 
where apparent. We boast of ability to produce tens, 
hundreds, thousands of times more than could our an- 
cestors from equal expenditure of human energy. And 
what avails all this so far as the great mass of humanity 
is concerned? Palaces? Yes, for the few; and in their 
long shadows lurk the cringing forms of millions of our 
people whose very blood was transmuted into the marble 
columns and granite walls. Machinery? Such as makes 
the wildest dreams of fairy land look commonplace; and 
we put it under lock and key of private ownership and re- 
strict its function to the creation of dividends. Produce? 
We can create sufficient for half a world; still poverty 
and wretchedness everywhere and one-tenth of our great 
cities' millions carried to the Potter's field. Business 
ability? Yes, in abundance and trained to a degree un- 
paralleled in all the past; and the nation, yea, the world 
periodically bankrupt, poverty stricken. Willing work- 
ers? A nation of them; with millions in enforced idle- 
ness and tens of thousands shivering in the bread lines 
of charity. All this is not, as some contend, due to the 
mismanagement of capitalists. We cannot say to them, 
"Gentlemen, you have mismanaged and must make way 
for others." The present system of industry is incapable 
of management. While labor-power remains a commodity 
its surplus product must go to the exploiters. That sur- 
plus is greater than they can consume or dispose of; and 
no degree of management can prevent the accumulations 
that force stagnation and panics. It is of the $8 worth 
that panics and poverty alike are born. It is the capitalist 
system of industry that must go, that must be totally 
supplanted by a co-operative commonwealth. 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 109 

IX. 

ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

The sharing of women and children in the work of 
production is by no means a recent or modern institution. 
Women and children have always performed their part 
in this work and, especially since agriculture became an 
occupation, that part has been an important one. In the 
later stages of barbarism and the earlier eras of civiliza- 
tion, the production of bread was largely in their hands. 
They had their part in the planting, in the reaping of 
harvests, in the threshing, in the grinding — in every pro- 
cess of production. In fact, it was the machine that drove 
the women and children so largely from farm labor. Un- 
til almost within the memory of our older citizens, card- 
ing, spinning and weaving was, is large measure, their 
task. This was home work — communal labor — and each 
shared in it as conditions required. But almost all of such 
labor is now a stranger to the home. The great factory 
has absorbed it all — and absorbed the women and chil- 
dren as well. Yes, mother and child have always done 
their part, and doubtless the race, or at least such as the 
Americans, entered the machine age physically better and 
stronger because of this labor. It was performed in 
healthful quarters, in open air, in field and in forest. The 
environment was invigorating, life breathing. There was 
restful variety through it all. There was a chance for 
pause, opportunity for conversation and joviality. Its 
movements, its hours were not timed to the beating of 
the iron heart of an engine. The workers were not under 
the lash of a slave driver. It was life close to nature. 
There was alternation of play and work, work and play. 



110 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

The birds, the flowers, the babbling brooks were there 
and the great blue dome over all. , 

Yes, savagery, barbarism, civilization called upon 
woman and child to share in life's struggles; but it re- 
mained for the age of machinery, the age of "society," 
the age of the billionaire, the age of general suffrage and 
democratic governments, the age of triumphant science 
and free public schools, the age of marvelous inventions — 
marvelous means of production — to enslave them body 
and soul. It remained for this age of progress to reduce 
millions of them to a servitude in which they may well 
envy the condition of the mediaeval serf or the black slave 
of the southland. 

No right-minded person would contend that women 
and children should not work, should not share in the 
labor necessary to produce the food, clothing and shel- 
ter, the necessaries and the luxuries of life. Pampered 
ease is a curse to which no one should be subjected; but 
inflicting slavish toil is a crime that should and will 
damn the people that tolerates it. Every child should 
be taught to work just as he should be taught to read and 
to think; in simultaneously training mind and body, we 
lay the foundation of a useful, industrious, thoughtful 
manhood. But a system of industry that subjects women 
and children to toil — and that unnecessarily — is an in- 
famous thing that should be wiped off the earth by an 
outraged humanity. 

To work, to handle tools and machinery, to actually 
make useful things from raw material — this should be 
required of every boy and every girl every day of school 
life. The idea (and practice) of capitalism that young 
men and women should first get an education and then go 
out into the world and learn how to do something, how 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 111 

to be of some account to themselves and others, is in keep- 
ing with the fallacies of the whole system. An indus- 
trial regime that destines a majority of a nation's children 
to the ranks of bread-winners before they can progress 
even beyond the work of the sixth year of school life, 
that leaves them practically illiterate, offers small oppor- 
tunity for preparation for anything but a life of de- 
pendence and servility. However, such beings may make 
fairly good slaves — the chief requisite in capitalist in- 
dustry. 

The mockery of industrial instruction known as 
manual training is gradually gaining a footing in some of 
the schools of the country. So far as it goes and for the 
few that it affects, rudimentary and stingy as it is, it beats 
nothing. 

When our industrial system has evolved to the re- 
quirements of twentieth century civilization, the spectacle 
of a young man's or woman's leaving a university at the 
age of from twenty-two to twenty-five, wholly unfit to 
make a living in the industries, will be a thing of the 
past. "What, give them all such a course of industrial 
training as will teach each a trade ?" says some capitalist 
adherent. Yes, every boy and every girl. Why some 
and not others? Would such a course be lost even on a 
doctor, or lawyer, or scientist? Hardly. And again, it 
is the scientific way to educate — strengthen the brain 
through muscular action and train the hand through 
thought-goverened manipulation. This will be the So- 
cialist means for qualifying each for a universal require- 
ment — that he make his own living. 

The author while visiting an institution in Kansas 
City that furnished real industrial instruction to a very 
small per cent of that city's youths, called the attention 



112 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

of the principal to the good quality of work but inade- 
quate provisions for it. "But/' he replied, "it would be 
a tremendous expense to supply such advantages even 
for every pupil in the larger cities, not to mention those 
of the smaller places and the country." That condenses 
the whole matter in a nutshell. Capitalism cannot afford 
thus to train its boys and girls and perhaps it is as well 
for that system that it doesn't. A little learning is a dan- 
gerous thing — for capitalism or any other species of 
tyranny. 

Capitalism cannot afford such facilities for educating 
its manhood and womanhood. Certainly not. But it 
can afford to hand over a hundred million dollars a year 
to a Rockerfeller for playing golf and talking to Sunday 
school classes. A little item like fifteen millions a year 
to a Carnegie for sitting around in the shades of Skibo 
and moralizing about the curse of dying rich, does not in 
the least disturb its equanimity; though probably no other 
funds ever collected represent so relatively great an ex- 
penditure of human life, an equal relative degree of mur- 
der.* It can squander enough millions annually on the 
depraved rich of New York City alone to build, equip and 



*The Literary Digest of January 16, 1909, says: "Pittsburg is 
to industrial America what Washington is to the nation politically, 
and for this reason a group of from ten to thirty expert sociolo- 
gists have been investigating Pittsburg for a year, finding out things 
that the city itself did not know, and laying the foundations for 
reforms to stop the loss of life that is wasting the city's human 
assets. This investigation is called "The Pittsburg Survey," and is 
partly financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Its results are pub- 
lished in Charities and the Commons (New York). Pittsburg is 
a city of Slavs, Italians, Poles, negroes, Irish, Scotch, English, Ger- 
mans, Jews, Syrians, Bohemians, Japanese, Corn-Planter Indians, 
and Americans. It might seem hopeless for the sociologist, however 
learned, to try to bring order out of all this chaos, but it was done 
by remembering that all these races are in Pittsburg with one ob- 
ject — to work. And if work is their object, it would seem that they 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 113 

maintain many thousands of such schools. It can spend 
hundreds of millions annually in equipping for defense or 
conquest of a market for what it legally filches from the 
toilers. It can constantly support in luxurious idleness 
and in parasitic employments such an army of humanity 
as, were their energies rightly directed, could easily pro- 
duce many times the entire cost of bringing to splendid 
maturity every boy and girl in America. It can — but 
enough. Such capitalistic pleas, in the lime-light of facts, 
are nauseating to intelligence. When the class struggle 
has ended and that $8 worth goes to its producers, the 
training that should be and will be the heritage of every 
child will be an inconsiderable item and the best invest- 
ment of civilization. 

Yes, men, women, and children should work and the 
necessity for their doing so should be imperative. No 



get their fill of it. Twelve hours a day is the rule for most of 
them, leaving them so exhausted that there is no time or inclination 
for reading, recreation, religion, or even home life. One man, after 
many years of such work, remarked that he would have been hap- 
pier in the penitentiary. 

It was found that as high as 50 per cent of all young foreign- 
ers who come to Pittsburg contract typhoid fever within two years 
of their arrival. Employment agencies, under no adequate super- 
vision, were discovered in some cases to be carrying on an infamous 
business. In one part of Homestead, near the Carnegie Steel 
Works, it was found that one baby in every three died before seeing 
its second birthday. Worst of all is the frightful toll of life taken 
by accidents. A Japanese veteran of the recent war told one of the 
investigators that "he looks upon his experience upon battlefields 
as quite commonplace compared with his experience in the steel 
mills." Over five hundred men are killed every year in the course 
of their work, and an unknown number seriously injured. The 
victims are usually the pick of the men; they are the young men; 
half of them are native-born; 51 per cent, have families, and 30 per 
cent, more are single men who partly, or wholly, support their fami- 
lies. The money loss to Pittsburg from this destruction of the 
workers is declared to be enormous, and the city is told that it can 
well afford to spend millions in devising ways to stop it." 



114 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

greater blessing can ever fall to the lot of each. But the 
nation that subjects its womanhood and childhood (or 
manhood, for that matter) to such conditions of toil as 
now obtain over a large part of the United States is rot- 
ting in its vitals and is unworthy of perpetuity. It is 
fostering the elements of its own destruction; like the 
mythical demon of the ancients, it feasts upon its own 
offspring. 

There are about 2,000,000 children under the age of 
15 years employed in the industries of this nation. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of them are toiling in such conditions 
as would shame the old institutions of serfdom and chattel 
slavery. 

For the South, let one speak who has looked upon it. 
Elbert Hubbard tells us: "Many of the black slaves 
lived to a good old age, and they got a hearty enjoyment 
from life. 

"The infant factory slaves of South Carolina can never 
develop into men and women. There are no mortality 
statistics; the mill owners baffle all attempts of the out- 
side public to get at the facts, but my opinion is that in 
many mills death sets the little prisoner free inside of 
four years. Beyond that he cannot hope to live, and this 
opinion is derived from careful observation and inter- 
views with skilled and experienced physicians who prac- 
tice in the vicinity of the mills. 

"Boys and girls from the age of six years and upwards 
are employed. They usually work from 6 o'clock in the 
morning to 7 o'clock at night. For four months in the 
year they go to work before daylight and they work un- 
til after dark. 

"At noon I saw them squat on the floor and devour 
their food, which consisted mostly of corn bread and ba- 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 115 

con. These weazened pigmies munched in silence, and 
they toppled over in sleep on the floor in all the abandon 
of babyhood. Very few wore shoes and stockings; doz- 
ens of the little girls of say 7 years of age wore only one 
garment, a linsey-woolsey dress. When it came time to 
go to work the foreman marched through the groups, 
shaking the sleepers, shouting in their ears, lifting them 
to their feet, and, in a few instances, kicking the delin- 
quents into wakefulness. The long afternoon had begun 
— from a quarter to 1 until 7 o'clock they worked with- 
out respite or rest. 

"The toddlers I saw, for the most part, did only one 
thing — they watched the flying spindles on a frame 
twenty feet long, and tied the broken threads. They 
could not sit at their tasks; back and forth they paced, 
watching with inanimate, dull look the flying spindles. 
The roar of the machinery drowned every other sound- 
back and forth paced the baby toilers in their bare feet, 
and mended the broken threads. Two, three or four 
threads would break before they could patrol the twenty 
feet — the threads were always breaking. 

"The noise and the constant looking at the flying 
wheels reduce nervous sensation in a few months to the 
minimum. The child does not think, he ceases to suffer 
— memory is as dead as hope; no more does he long for 
the green fields, the running streams, the freedom of the 
woods, and the companionship of all the wild, free things, 
that run, climb, swim, fly or burrow. He does his work 
like an automaton ; he is a part of the roaring machinery ; 
memory is sealed, physical vitality is at such a low ebb 
that he ceases to suffer. Nature puts a short limit on 



116 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

torture by sending insensibility. If you suffer, thank God — 
it is a sure sign you are alive." 

And then the same author adds : 

"The overseer is not a bad man, but he has to make a 
report to the superintendent — there must be so much 
cloth made every day. 

"The superintendent is not a bad man, but he has to 
make a daily report to the president of the company, and 
the president has to report to the stockholders. 

"The stockholders live in Boston, and all they want 
is their dividends." 

And these stockholders are the fellows who, when their 
dividends fail, order these industries closed ; and shut these 
wretched slaves from even such means of life as these perdi- 
tions afford. 

Robert Hunter for years made a study of child labor 
conditions in the North and East. Let us quote some of 
his words from "Poverty:" 

"At this moment, after one hundred years of war has 
been waged for the abolition of child slavery, over 
1,700,000 (figures from census of 1900) children under 
fifteen years of age are toiling in fields, factories, mines, 
and workshops. 

"These figures mean little to most persons, for, as 
Margaret MacMillan has said, 'You cannot put tired 
eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little limbs into statis- 
tics;' and neither can any one, by any effort of the imagi- 
nation, call up before the mind's eye the human units in 

census figures They are figures which we see, and 

not children, and figures come before the eye and are 
forgotten. We should never forget one sight of a hundred 
of these little ones if they were marched out of the mills, 
mines, and factories before our eyes, or if we saw them to- 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 117 

gether toiling for ten or twelve hours a day or a night for 
a pittance of wage; but that we do not see, and we for- 
get figures. New York City has not so many children; 
all the thousands on the streets are not so many as these 
children of the workshops. . . . 

"In the mining districts of Pennsylvania children labor 
under conditions which are, if possible, even more in- 
jurious to them than the child labor of the cotton-mills 
is to the children of the South. In the mills, mines, and 
factories, before the furnaces, and in the sweatshops of 
Pennsylvania, that state of colossal industrial crimes, 
one hundred and twenty thousand little ones were, in the 
year 1900, sacrificing a part of their right to life, most of 
their right to liberty, and all of their right to happiness, 
except perhaps of a bestial kind. . . . 

"The girls go to the mills, the boys to the breakers. 
A year or two ago Mr. Francis H. Nichols said regarding 
these working children: T saw four hundred lads work- 
ing in the breakers. One of the children told me, 'We 
go to work at seven in the morning and stay until six in 
the evening.' 'Are there many in the breakers younger 
than you?' he asked one of the children. 'Why, sure, 
I'm one of the oldest; I'm making sixty cents. Most of 
them is eight and nine years old.' Mr. Nichols then 
asked, 'Did you ever go to school?' 'To school?' the 
child echoed; 'Say, mister, you must be a green hand. 
Why, lads in the anthracite doesn't go to school; they 
works in the breakers.' They do not go to school, but 
instead they are put to work as soon as they can be 
trusted not to fall into the machinery and be killed. There 
is hardly any employment more demoralizing and physi- 
cally injurious than this work in the breakers. For ten 
or eleven hours a day these children of ten and eleven 



118 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

years stoop over the chute and pick out the slate and 
other impurities from the coal as it moves past them. 
The air is black with coal dust, and the roar of the 
crushers, screens, and rushing mill-race of coal is deaf- 
ening. Sometimes one of the children falls into the ma- 
chinery and is terribly mangled, or slips into the chute 
and is smothered to death. Many children are killed in 
this way. Many others, after a time, contract coal-miners' 
asthma and consumption, which gradually undermine 
their health. Breathing continually, day after day, the 
clouds of coal dust, their lungs become black and choked 
with small particles of anthracite." 

Some states, Illinois, for instance, have enacted and at- 
tempted to at least partially enforce labor laws forbid- 
ding the employment of children under 16 years of age. 
Of this law the meat trust, with headquarters in Chicago, 
says: 

"The child-labor law has done more harm than good 
in the stockyards' industry. Before the enactment of the 
statute forbidding the employment of children under 16 
years of age, many of them obtained profitable work in 
the packing plants. Now they run at large in the neigh- 
borhood, for their parents will not keep them in school. 
As a matter of fact, a boy who has not learned to work 
by the time he reaches 16 years of age, never will learn. 
He has, on the other hand, acquired habits that make 
him unfit for work!" 

True, if he is not taught before he is 16, the chances 
are largely against his ever learning either to work or 
think. But what are the conditions in which these 
philanthropic gentlemen propose to impart this essential 
instruction? Let A. M. Simons of Chicago answer: 

"When it is remembered that these children were em- 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 119 

ployed in catching the blood that flowed from the 
slaughtered animals, cleansing intestines for sausage 
casing, etc., some idea of the elevating influences from 
which the child-labor law took them is gained." 

Capitalism is rotten through and through and consis- 
tent in its rottenness. It would train these boys and girls 
for its slave pens; it can offer nothing better. 

Hon. James F. Carey of Massachusetts, in "The Child 
Labor Evil," says a word for his state : 

"Hundreds of small boys work for Mr. Borden (Fall 
River, Mass.) and many of them toil ten hours a day with- 
out a thread of clothing on their bodies. No one except 
employes is allowed to enter the works, and therefore 
when it was stated before a woman's club in New York, 
last week, that naked babies were at work in the Fall 
River mills, much interest was aroused. . . . 

"They work in the big tanks called 'lime keer/ in the 
bleach house, packing the cloth into the vats. 

"This lime keer holds 750 pieces of cloth, and it re- 
quires one hour and twenty minutes to fill it. During 
that time the lad must work inside, while his body is be- 
ing soaked with whatever there is of chemicals which 
enter into the process of bleaching, of which lime is a 
prominent factor. 

"The naked bodies of the children who do this work 
day after day are never dry, and the same chemicals which 
effect the bleaching process of the gray cloth naturally 
bleaches the skin of the operator, and after coming out 
of the vats the boys show the effects in the whiteness of 
their skins, which rivals the cotton cloth." 

This, like that in Chicago, is a fair capitalistic sample 
of benevolently assimilating childhood to its future func- 
tion in society — the making of dividends for stockholders. 



120 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

If one of these daily bleached little wretches should turn 
out to be a tramp or an anarchist, what a case of falling 
from grace, or what an evidence of inbred depravity it 
w r ould furnish the capitalistic moralist. 

Gibson Gardner reports a Washington, D. C. judge 
of a United States court as saying: "It is impossible to 
have a perfect system. Somebody will always suffer in- 
justice. Somebody has got to be ground in the mud/' 
Yes, while the system of industry that he advocates ob- 
tains, "grinding in the mud/' at the loom, in the coal 
chute, in the vats, and in the sweatshops is the regular 
order. But American manhood is awakening, Judge, and 
the time comes apace when, if it is necessary to do any 
grinding, it will not be the women and children that will 
be under the stones. 

The difficulty in securing enactment and enforcement 
of a law governing the labor of women and children 
arises from its inconsistency with the present system of 
industry. In the first place, so far as such legislation re- 
lates to women, it is at variance with that modern myth 
known as "the right of free contract.'' This has come to 
mean the right of the capitalist to formulate the contract, 
and the right of the laborer to sign it if he is so fortunate 
as to get an opportunity. This myth still has orthodox 
adherents among the judiciary who conveniently find 
authority for the tenet in that obsolete and very elastic 
document known as our Constitution. For this reason 
such laws are commonly consigned to the unconstitu- 
tional scrap heap. Secondly, labor-power is a com- 
modity; and such enactments interfere with one's right 
to purchase where he can do so most cheaply and, there- 
fore, they diminish the annual returns of the would-be 
purchaser. Thirdly, they cannot reveal the truth about 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 121 

a child's age and, as a consequence, they give rise to a 
fertile and extensive source of perjury, lying and mis- 
representation — corruption — such as characterize the 
whole capitalist system. Let it be in mercy (and in 
truth) said that doubtless in a great majority of cases, 
as far as concerns the untruthful statements of mother 
and child, they are justified on the grounds of acting un- 
der duress. When necessity presses with sufficient rigor, 
a false statement, like the one uttered by the nun in de- 
fense of Jean Valjean, is registered to their credit in 
heaven. It is a notorious fact that where these laws are 
"enforced" there is a dearth of children whose "ages" are 
within three years of the legal limit. Fourthly, the 
United States cannot enact a labor law of universal appli- 
cation; therefore the various states must act independ- 
ently. If, therefore, in one or more states, the purchas- 
ers of labor-power are permitted to buy in a cheaper 
market than are those of another or other states, the dealers 
in the cheaper market have a very decisive economic 
advantage over their more unfortunate competitors else- 
where. In fact, in some states the absence of restrictive 
labor legislation is held out as an inducement to would- 
be investors in mills, factories, etc. "Excellent oppor- 
tunities for investment ; children are plentiful and cheap" 
— is, at least by implication, an advertisement that brings 
many a dollar per letter. Under the stimulus of such 
"opportunities" the dividends of the owners of the south- 
ern cotton mills are becoming the envy of the northern 
manufacturers. The inequalities in economic conditions 
due to these state enactments supply a most potent argu- 
ment against such legislation and an equally powerful 
preventative of its enforcement where such law has been 
enacted. Were it not for the vigilance of the labor unions, 



122 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

such laws would everywhere be as dead a set of enact- 
ments as ever graced the statutes of any country in the 
world. Until labor in the South is aroused and organ- 
ized, anti-child-labor laws might as well be left off the 
books. If the goodly disposed people down there think 
they can long defeat the purposes of the exploiters backed 
by their political machine, they have something to learn 
about practical politics. 

If cruelty and legalized murder were the only evils 
consequent upon the enslavement of women and children, 
it might go on indefinitely. Life is cheap, dividends are 
precious and labor is prolific. That capitalistic monster 
greed might batten upon childhood and womanhood for 
generations and the supply still be equal to the demand. The 
murderous cruelty, the horror of the thing would put to 
shame any race of savages of whom we have any record ; 
but the pious plutocrat who gloats over possessions 
sweated and distilled out of the very life's blood of child 
and woman,* like the privileged of all ages, "has no con- 
science on the subject of his privilege." He does not 



*"But the evil (sweatshop) is so extensive and so difficult to 
reach that the ordinary factory inspectors are plainly unable to cope 
with it; about 160,000 person are in the industry (clothing), of 
whom 70% are on contract work, the only limit to their hours of 
toil being the limit of endurance. No other class of laborers is so 
desperately situated, owing to the difficulty of introducing reforms 
in the numerous small places abounding in the dark corners of the 
great cities, the helplessness of the victims and the ignorant tenacity 
with which they cling to their tasks. It seems as though its 
victims are grasping at a chance to preserve life for the time beings 
at any cost." — U. S. Labor Commissioner Carroll D. Wright, in v ' 
Bulletin of Labor, May, 1896. 

The veteran contributor, Bill Arp, of Atlanta Constitution fame, 
told us, some time in the '8o's, of an evening spent in a north- 
ern city, where at least $25,000 was squandered on a good time. 
In his excellent description of that social function he said (in 
substance) that in the midst of the revelry, there came to him this 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 123 

see the women suffer and the babies die. Their cries 
never reach his ear. If he offers excuse or defense for his 
conduct, he pleads justification on two grounds: First, 
he is not personally responsible for such conditions as 
now obtain. They are universal in Christendom and he 
cannot obviate them. Second, he is in a competitive sys- 
tem of industry and is as helpless to thwart its merciless 
laws as is chaff to stay a whirlwind. Others take ad- 
vantage of open conditions; he must do so or economi- 
cally perish. And this is true. No matter what his indi- 
vidual conscience, his class is conscienceless. If his com- 
petitor, through a manager who must report progress, 
employs attractive young women at $3 per week who are 
assumed to look to "gentlemen" friends to supply the de- 
ficit in funds, his own manager (or himself) must possess 
sufficient business acumen to meet the sharp practices of 
the competitor or lose his job. And so the merciless 
system grinds on, and, so long as it obtains, can no more 
check its own deadly work than can a rolling Juggernaut. 
But cruelty and legalized murder are by no means the 
full measure of the awful results of this blight upon so- 
called civilization. If the institutions of our social and 
political — governmental — organization are not such as to 
train our people for participation as members of that or- 
ganization ; if through the medium of our institutions we 
fail to qualify our people for citizenship, we fail in the 



thought: "It is one o'clock. Within a half-mile radius of this 
place, there are at this hour thousands of women making shirts at 
six cents apiece; and of my own personal knowledge I know that 
every cent of that $25,000 was earned by the labor of their fingers." 
Arp, in common with most Americans of that day, knew not 
what to do about the matter of such slavery and legalized robbery 
as he therein instanced. Perhaps he never learned: but America 
is learning, learning fast. 



124 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

most essential function of organized society.* On this 
statement of truth the thoughtful are agreed; and what 
a condemnation of capitalism is voiced in that agreement. 

Qualification for citizenship means something besides 
having spent the first twenty-one years of one's life with- 
in the United States. It means the physical strength, 
manual skill, mental discipline and general knowledge 
that alone can characterize a properly developed manhood 
or womanhood. 

Measured by such a standard — and no people in this 
age of the world who lay any claim to being civilized 
should tolerate any other — the shortcomings of our own 
institutions are truly appalling. 

The larger per cent, the governing majority so far as 
voting determines the course and character of govern- 
ment, receive practically no sort of training beyond the 
age of eleven or twelve years, except such as may be 
gleaned from the street, the factory, the mine, the sweat- 
shop or other infernos of capitalism. As for mental dis- 
cipline, it has not been carried through the memorizing 
period; on general knowledge, their minds are a blank; 
physically, when we have excepted the agricultural la- 
borers, they are wrecks; manual skill, few indeed pos- 
sess it. Even in craft training they learn to do things 
like an automaton — they become simply a part of a ma- 
chine — and any unfortunate circumstance that disquali- 
fies them for that particular function leaves them help- 
less and dependent. No general knowledge of mechanics, 



* Commenting upon a committee's report showing an astonish- 
ing percentage of Britons who could not qualify as recruits for the 
South African army, England's premier said to his parliament that 
a government that failed in developing a strong physical aswell as 
mental manhood, failed in the most essential thing for which gov- 
ernments are established among men. 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 125 

physics, mathematics, or of anything else — not even of 
the use of tools — is theirs. Nor can this knowledge be 
gained except through self-directed effort on the part of 
one who is by toil already physically disqualified for any 
sort of exertion > and in whom the mental training is so 
defective that the sources of, or even the existence of 
knowledge beyond his immediate sphere of action is as 
shadowy a dream as the goblins of the nether world. And 
this is capitalism at its best. 

Now go to the southern cotton mills and tell us how 
many of those thousands of little boys and girls can ever 
qualify for anything that savors of real manhood, woman- 
hood, motherhood, citizenship or for anything else but a 
capitalistic slave-pen or a pauper's grave. And then go 
North and apply the same test. "How many children, Mr. 
Payson, are doing their day's work in your New Jersey 
factories? I have seen them — crawling to the shops in 
the early morning. There's no play time for them. But 

you need the money I'd ask no hotter hell for 

you and your wife than to have your own children sold 
to the same job — with the same food and wages, the same 
work and the same hours."* 

There are now almost if not quite a hundred thousand 
little girls in a single industry — the textile mills — of this 
nation and the number is on the increase. These are 
destined not only to slavery blacker than ever before fell 
to the lot of mortals — for the chattel slave owner could ill 
afford such waste of property — but disqualified for every 
proper function of womanhood — a damning blight that 
should bring the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah upon any 
nation that permits such a thing even for an hour. And 



* Mitchell : "The Silent War," page 132. 



126 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

all this is but a tithe of our sacrifice for fine mansions, 
yachts, automibiles, "smart sets," "society," foreign 
dudes, millionaires — a plutocratic aristocracy. 

And Pennsylvania, that grand old commonwealth, 
with untold store of what should be blessings, fosters a 
boyhood and a manhood in numbers sufficient to hold 
the balance of power in determining a national policy, not 
one per cent of whom can ever qualify for the duties of 
American citizenship ; destined to slavery, ignorance, vice, 
crime, and the transmission of disease and deformity to 
future generations. And Pennsylvania's compensation 
for such sacrifice of boyhood and manhood, what is it? 
Pittsburg's millionaire clubs with their regular grist of 
social scandals and divorces ; an array of cities whose cor- 
rupt governments are the world-wide envy of the profes- 
sional grafter; a railway system the most brazenly vile 
on the face of earth ; a state government that would shame 
the imps of darkness. 

Greater New York city boasts of her millions of hu- 
manity when, in present conditions, two-thirds of them 
stand about as much of a chance to qualify for citizenship 
under a civilized standard as do the beasts of the jungle. 
And the same is true of all large cities. 

The wonder is not that evil is rampant ; but rather that 
it has not long since swamped all that is good in human 
institutions. It has not done so and therefore the capi- 
talist apologists tell us the good outweighs the evil. Yes, 
good outweighs evil as gold, volume for volume, out- 
weighs feathers. But the claims of the apologists are not 
true. The sum total of good does not outweigh the sum 
total of evil, far, far from it. The influence of the non- 
vicious, the non-openly criminal, and the conservative, 
backed by the organized powers of government, exceeds 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 127 

that of the vicious, beastly criminal and destructive; but 
this classification falls far short of following right lines 
of demarcation between the good and the evil in our so- 
cial, political, and industrial organism. In the classifica- 
tion of these apologists we find the prevailing system of 
labor exploitation lined up with the good and even a note 
of emphasis attached telling of our righteous steward- 
ship of wealth divinely bestowed upon the chosen. Con- 
fronted by such a premise — by such a conception of 
right and wrong, of good and evil — it is not worth while 
to investigate their conclusions. Their code of ethics 
might serve the lower grades of savagery, but even a 
semi-enlightened barbarism would spurn it, were its peo- 
ple free to do so. 

The question as to what should be the function of the 
state in dealing with children is now upon us. Capital- 
ism says : "We offer through our public school system — 
primary, grammar grade, high school and university — 
an opportunity for every child to obtain an education. 
What more do you ask?" We answer: "We ask just 
enough to inject into your declaration a meaning con- 
sistent with the words and to substitute truth for its 
falsity. Your system in no wise offers what you claim 
for it* 

The claims of capitalism regarding proffered oppor- 
tunities are at par with the system generally. It is rotten 
to the core and consistent in its rottenness. To say that every 
American child has opportunity for an education is quite 
as absurd as to say that each has an opportunity to be 
president — the euphonious construction of a deceptive 
lie — the statement of a physical impossibility. 

In the first place, the capitalist system of robbing 
producers renders impossible the withstanding of ex- 



128 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

pense necessary to take advantage even of our "free 
school system." The defenders of an industrial system 
that forces the whole family into the ranks of bread win- 
ners in order that they live and the exploiters thrive are 
playing upon fancy or falsehood when they prate of op- 
portunities for those workers to be anything but slaves; 
and, so far as capitalism is concerned, there is no need 
for their being anything else. Capitalism must supply 
such a degree of education as will keep its labor market 
stocked to the required number and of requisite skill — a 
regular part of the cost of reproducing labor-power ; but be- 
yond that, 'twere better not to educate — safer for capi- 
talism, better for the more skilled laborers. Then the 
children of tens of thousands of mothers who toil in fac- 
tories and sweat shops — who will keep them in school or 
anywhere else that childhood's hours should be spent? 
Where grammar and high school courses are abridged 
in order to make possible a sort of graduation for a few 
before the girls must break for the factory and the boys 
for who knows where? — what must be the "education'' 
of the millions of wretchedly poor, or of unskilled work- 
ers generally, who can never or seldom see the inside of 
a high school? 

In the second place, what is the nature of the "educa- 
tion" that is proffered even for those who can avail them- 
selves of it? The author has spent twenty-five years of 
his life in educational work, fifteen of them in the high 
school department. He is, therefore, by no means a 
stranger to the matter in hand. Education should be, as 
previously stated, a training of the mental, physical, 
manual and moral powers. As it is, the element of 
utility, except for the professions, is almost wholly sub- 
merged and, in some "aristocratic" quarters, actually 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 129 

tabooed. There is little in such "education" that attracts 
him who knows that he is doomed to go out into that capi- 
talistic hell known as the labor market and "rustle a 
living." 

"Do you mean to say that every boy and girl should 
have a university education?" If you mean by a univer- 
sity education a long, laborious, thorough drilling in 
languages, literature, history, mathematics and science 
with the object in view of taking a degree, we answer, 
certainly not. You can't put two gallons of water in a 
quart jug, because the water is incompressible and the 
jug is not of sufficient capacity. But it will hold a quart 
and that much should go into it. There is not a sane child in 
our land who is not fully capable of being trained to per- 
form intelligently a useful, necessary function in our so- 
cial and industrial organism, not one. That training to 
his fullest capacity, should be his birthright; and not 
parent, guardian nor earthly thing should be permitted 
to abridge that right to the slightest degree. That much 
for every child, Socialism would have to do in order to be 
consistent ; for in such a system, each is made wholly de- 
pendent upon his individual effort and it is to the inter- 
est of all that that effort be w r ell directed and effective. 
Upon such direction and effectiveness would depend the 
social product of labor and consequently the returns for 
labor generally. The less waste, the better for all; for 
waste in any system is an expense that productive labor 
must meet. In capitalism, a waste is a good thing as it 
provides more opportunity for the producers to live — 
more jobs; in Socialism, as all would be producers, it 
would be a universal loss, except wherein the individual 
wasted his own returns. 

"Then, in Socialism, if parents were indisposed to have 



130 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

their children trained and educated or were disqualified 
to care for children, were unfit to rear them, you would 
take them away and place them under care of the State?" 
Well, if a child were in danger, you would not stop to as- 
certain before rendering the needed assistance whether 
the parent really cared to have that child rescued; and, 
furthermore, you would not deal very gently with the 
parent who attempted to interfere in any manner with 
your work as a rescuer. The interests of the child would 
be your only consideration. You would do more; you 
would even slay the parent were it necessary to save the 
child; that is, you would if you are just and humane. 
If Socialism were established tomorrow, its heritage from 
capitalism would necessitate the State's taking in charge 
a great many of the children of capitalistic wrecks; yes, 
and even the wrecks themselves as well as their offspring. 
Among these temporary burdens would necessarily be the 
male and female members of the "smart sets" of our great 
cities, "society" functionaries and all the expensive dudes 
in whom they invest. Humanity would demand that they 
be taken tenderly and taught how to be of some service 
to themselves and mankind. They would have to be 
taught how to make a living, for that they would have to 
do as soon as they could learn how. And it would be 
the greatest blessing that could be bestowed upon them 
this side of heaven. "But this would be expensive." 
Probably not one-tenth of one per cent as expensive as 
they now are and productive labor supports them without 
a protest. Remember they live from the $8 worth. An 
inconsiderable fraction of that amount would meet all 
requirements. Of course they would be barred from pay- 
ing hundreds of dollars for worthless terriers and poodles 
while babies are starving in the next block; but, in the 



ENSLAVEMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 131 

long run, this will be a good thing for all concerned, 
even for the curs. Be that as it may, a very few years of 
Socialism would relieve society of all such burdens and 
of all necessity for action that even savored of charity or 
compulsion. 

This problem of enslaved women and children in sweat- 
shop and factory and mine has its sole basis in profit. 
Its attendant vice, misery, degradation and destruction of 
life is a sacrifice to mammon. If heathen institutions any- 
where on earth were offering one human sacrifice to our 
fifty, righteous horror and indignation would thrill all 
Christendom and missionary funds would swell the con-, 
tribution boxes to bursting. But this is going on right 
in our midst, a regular factor in the production of million- 
aires. Our mammon worshipers donate a trifle for 
charity and piously fold their hands and murmur: "We 
can't help it. The poor you have always with you/ Di- 
vine wisdom has bestowed the wealth of the nation into 
our keeping and control. We are the fittest and hence 
survive. The dying babes and their slave mothers and 
fathers are unfortunate. They should be more economi- 
cal." And then they go to take their bull-dogs out for 
an airing or to squander a fortune in launching some 
pampered darling on the road to matrimony, or a thou- 
sand fortunes to purchase her a foreign prince. And la- 
borers, in their ignorance, supply these funds ; thus corrupt- 
ing the exploiter and enslaving themselves. 

The nation's sources of subsistence are private prop- 
erty — utilized solely for profit. The owners must buy the 
commodity labor-power. Women and children supply a 
cheaper, greater-profit-yielding brand than do men. 
Therefore, theirs is in demand. And thus chained to the 
chariot wheels of this hideous god Mammon, they are 
dragged to their doom. And so they will go until this 



132 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

end, it would all prove better for them, for the babes, and 
merciless, insatiable, monstrous system of greed called 
capitalism has ceased to be a human institution — until 
the sources of life are collectively owned. If there is not 
an economic class struggle on in this nation, one is cer- 
tainly coming and has already been mercilessly delayed. 
For the thought that American manhood will much 
longer tolerate such conditions as now obtain is too gross, 
too inconsistent, too greatly at variance with our tradi- 
tions and our spirit of progressiveness to find lodgment in 
any thoughtful brain. 

X. 

DEGENERACY 

There is a wealth of truth suggested by that epigram- 
matic couplet of Goldsmith's : 

"111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 

Among the pages of history upon which the student 
dwells long and attentively are those that depict the decay 
of institutions and peoples. The occurrence of a great 
nation's moving slowly but surely, or rushing hurriedly, 
madly to its own certain undoing is one that merits a 
thoughtful analysis. And if that nation be our own, if our 
living selves are being swept along in that ill-fated current, 
our analysis ends in an urgent call to action whose incentive 
is nothing short of self-preservation. 

From the history of the past we learn to interpret the 
present and thence to prognosticate the future. We deter- 
mine the course that we are now pursuing and that to which, 
if long continued, it must inevitably lead. 



DEGENERACY 133 

In the story of the ancient nations we learn that degen- 
eracy and decay are the certain heritage of a people as soon 
as, from any cause whatsoever, the nation's wealth begins 
to concentrate as the possession of a few. Draper tells us 
that "the ruin of Rome was accomplished before the bar- 
barians touched it."* Judge Story but echoes the univer- 
sal voice of authority when he declares that "a mortal dis- 
ease was upon her vitals before Caesar had crossed the 
Rubicon"; and the germs of that disease were incubated 
in the cesspool of wealth concentration. No nation can 
long endure as the possession of a small fraction of its citi- 
zens. That condition means a dominant plutocracy and a 
mass of subordinates, underlings, dependents and slaves. 
There is not an element of endurance, strength or stability 
in either of these classes. As the wealth of a nation is 
sweated into few hands, the vital, enduring, progressive 
qualities of that people are benumbed and deadened. Decay 
and death are as sure as time. 

The conditions regularly and naturally attendant upon 
the amassing of great fortunes are incompatible with the 
building of such a manhood as that in which potent national 
and individual qualities are vested. We have already seen 
how corruption that is doing such deadly work along so 
many lines is a natural product of the institutions through 
which vast fortunes are accumulated. And this corruption 
reads degeneracy in every being poisoned by its venom. A 
people that will tolerate the placing, through the medium 
of a political machine or otherwise, of delegated authority 
upon an auction block, are not very far from the level of 
that block themselves. And it matters not whether the bid 
offered and accepted is a contribution to a state campaign 



* Draper : "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. I, page 
255. 



134 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

fund in exchange for a senatorial toga, or assurance of serv- 
ice acceptable to a corporation in return for official position 
of any degree, high or low. Corruption spells degeneracy, 
and every instance of it previously cited could with perfect 
propriety be written under the title of this chapter. 

Our boasted stewardship of wealth, typified in donations 
to or in construction of great institutions of learning, is 
but a mockery of enduring, ennobling national qualities when 
those "gifts" are a drain upon the vital forces of a great 
mass barred from those institutions as from the council 
chambers of an obligarchy. 

Again, the enervation, the degeneracy resulting from fit- 
ful, uncertain employment in such proportions as now obtain 
among our people is in itself a mortal virus that will work 
havoc upon a nation in, historically speaking, a very short 
time. A few inventors, authors, scientists, scholars, and 
patriots, shining examples though they may be, do not con- 
stitute a nation. They may qualify as pilots, but without 
competent seamen the ship is destined for the shoals. 

The vagrant, the tramp, the sweatshop denizens, the 
slum are but the slough of the unemployed army; these 
are the millions upon whom degeneracy is fast making or 
has made its final imprint. When a boy or man begs his 
first meal, whether it be at your back door, in the bread 
line or at "charity's" soup house, he has well nigh, if not 
wholly, ceased to be a considerable element in aught except 
a nation's decay. The hundreds of thousands of children 
who drag weary feet to and from the slave pens of our in- 
dustries are fast qualifying for entry into that vast class 
whose ambition of old was sated by "bread and circuses." 

In the early days of this Republic, this was a nation of 
homes. These were rural homes and had been hewn out of 
nature. They were not the abodes of luxury or of what is 



DEGENERACY 135 

commonly known as refinement ; but each was peopled by a 
father, a mother and their loved ones and was owned by the 
occupants. These occupants did not don swallow-tailed 
coats and semi-waistless dresses when they gathered around 
the evening meal ; but they earned what they w r ore and what 
they ate. They discussed various topics with a degree of 
ignorance that was rather broad and comprehensive; but 
all that was said and done evinced a wholesouled honesty 
and manliness. There was no semblance of the deceit, 
hypocrisy, jealousy and dissimulation that characterizes the 
full dressed (or half-dressed) banqueters. Life was real 
and wore its heart upon its sleeve; and the cares for the 
morrow excited neither anxiety nor pangs of conscience. 
The widow's sons might find it necessary to hunt 'coons in 
order to meet payment of taxes ; but there were no visions 
of a heartless, evicting landlord to poison the day and "mur- 
der sleep." 

Humble homes, these, but they produced a manhood 
glorified by contrast with its disinherited progeny. These 
homes are gone and their return is as impossible as is that 
of the conditions of which they were typical. They have 
been garnered by the exploiters or deserted for the indus- 
trial centers. Paradoxical as it may seem, progress de- 
manded their destruction and forbids a return to such as 
they, yet degeneracy has marked the course of their disap- 
pearance at every step and set its stamp upon millions that 
the changing, increasingly progressive conditions have 
evicted. Our methods of industry have completely out- 
grown all such institutions as these early homes. Progres- 
sive, relentless, merciless capitalism has destroyed them, and 
installed in their stead the indifferent, shiftless, thriftless 
tenant — in some instances concentrating their ownership into 
large holdings, in others, sending the now well-to-do owners 



136 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

into the gayer, more attractive and rapid life of the city, 
and their sons and daughters into the mills of industry. In 
either instance, a renter was substituted for the old home 
dwellers. This is true of almost half (more than 48%) of 
the farms of the nation and those that are not in tenantry 
are encumbered by more than a billion dollars in mortgages. 

The cry of "back to the country life" raised by a few 
who fain would check the inevitable trend of events is as 
futile as an attempt to lengthen the day by staying the hand 
upon the dial. The city, the factory, the mill, the mine has 
them and upon them these are doing their deadly work. 
This they will continue to do as long as industries are but 
mediums of exploitation. There is nothing inherently de- 
praving in city life, nor in labor in any form of factory, 
mine or mill ; there is no essential reason for an exodus to 
the country and an attempt to reinstate obsolete conditions, 
except the retention of the power of the exploiter ; but there 
is an inherent depraving force in a system of industry — of 
.ownership — that converts our cities into jungles of vice, 
crime and corruption and our factories, mills and mines 
into slave dens. 

The evolutionary industrial forces of the last century 
that wrought our developed industries made the massing of 
humanity an economic necessity ; and before economic neces- 
sity, human institutions are swept as chaff before a gale. 
Capitalism, with all its absurdities, its cruelties, its tyranny, 
not only marks the most marvelously progressive period of 
human history, but every phase of it from the enslaving of 
the child to the making of the billionaire, has been an essen- 
tial step along the highway of progress. It is a light task 
for us to look into the past and point out wherein greater 
good would have resulted and greater heights have been 
attained if a different course had been chosen at various 



DEGENERACY 137 

points along that highway. We can easily discern, for in- 
stance, that it would have been far better for the nation to 
have purchased the freedom of the black slave with money 
than with blood; but prior to the war, there was no time 
when the owners of those slaves — the then dominant power 
in the government — could comprehend that their economic 
interests lay in any such line of action. Their interpreta- 
tion of their own interests made necessary every step taken 
to maintain, extend and perpetuate their "sacred institu- 
tion" ; and, likewise, the counter interpretation of the econ- 
omic interests of those of the North made necessary every 
step taken to overthrow that "sacred" thing when it had 
outlived its usefulness — had become obsolete. When we 
talk of what should have been done or what would have 
been done if men had only been wise and good, we are deal- 
ing with, or rather speculating about ethereal, ideal beings 
such as we ourselves are not, and not with men with feet 
upon the earth, real beings as we are — thoughtless, indif- 
ferent, inert, followers of the lines of least resistance, mov- 
ing only as immediate conditions compel. So the exploit- 
ers of labor today — the dominant power in government — 
read (rightly or wrongly, it matters not) their economic 
interests in the retention of every institution of capitalism — 
enslaved child, woman and all — and these they will entrench, 
extend and perpetuate until exploited humanity shall dis- 
cern wherein lies its economic interests and takes such 
steps as are necessary to end the dominance of the exploit- 
ers both in government and in industry. We may then 
prattle about what should have been, but when we have 
analyzed conditions and humanity as they now are, it will 
be found that despite all seemingly unaccountable conduct 
on our part, despite all the cruelty and injustice that we 
tolerate, there is a consistency in it all, it is all necessary to 



138 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

the next step in advancement, we are very much like our 
predecessors. 

The degeneracy wrought through the institutions of cap- 
italism upon the lowly is not more marked or thorough than 
is the deterioration among their rich contemporaries. Ex- 
cept in this, that poverty's victims are far more numerous 
than are the progeny of affluence, there is slight difference 
in the baleful effects of the antipodal environments into 
which each is cast. The one suffers from penury, the other 
from superabundance; the one from inanition, the other 
from repletion ; the one from lack of necessaries, the other 
from surfeit of the unnecessary; the one from over work, 
the other from over idleness. Opposite as are the condi- 
tions into which each is thrust, the results are alike — deple- 
tion of the vital powers and submergence of the qualities 
that constitute a well rounded manhood or womanhood. 

In fact in many particulars, the havoc wrought by the 
unreasonable, artificial conditions to which humanity is now 
subjected is greater among the rich than among the poor. 
For whatever may be the suffering, the anguish of poverty, 
however it may shatter the spirit and blight the lives of 
those upon whom it rests, it at least leaves them possessed 
of qualities and of knowledge necessary to a condition of 
self-dependence. They have been in life's combat; they 
have learned the meaning of self-preservation. But among 
all classes of humanity there is no other that, as a whole, 
would be more helpless, more a prey to circumstances, more 
unfit to survive than would be the rich, if thrust upon their 
individual merits and resources into the real, great capital- 
istic world of today, into the jungle of human life. 

With no serious thought of the morrow, with no sense 
of responsibility, with unlimited means and no thought or 
care as to how or by whom those means were created, their 



DEGENERACY 139 

entry into the gay, fast life is a matter practically beyond 
their control. With them it is all play and no work. Their 
most strenuous effort is a search for variety in entertain- 
ment. Excesses, dissipation, non-conventionality follow 
such an existence as effect follows cause. The power and 
influence of their dollars not only smothers expression of 
merited criticism or censure but renders them indifferent to 
it. They seek only the approbation and applause of their 
own "set" and they are schooled in its ethical standards — or 
lack of standards. No other life could be more unreal, un- 
natural, insipid, void of all ennobling qualities than that 
into which they are plunged. Jealousy, envy, bitterness, 
backbiting characterize their conversation and deportment 
to a degree that nauseates intelligence and engulfs them all 
in a life of misery and simulation. 

If the evil consequent upon such worthless lives spent its 
whole force upon those with whom it is initiated, concern, 
solicitude, or regret would be far from universal ; but like a 
virulent contagion it spreads among aping tens, hundreds, 
thousands everywhere and becomes a source of national de- 
generacy of momentous proportions. That among such a 
spendthrift, pleasure seeking, money mad, plutocratic "aris- 
tocracy ," marriages based on expediency and their conse- 
quent "free love" and divorces should so largely predomin- 
ate is in accord with human nature. The body may for a 
time be held in subjection to a contract that consolidates 
large fortunes, but the soul will seek its affinity and finally 
assert itself. 

Possessed of unlimited means and constantly subjected 
to every form of temptation to exercise the power vested 
in those means, and this, too, after a few years of wild-oat 
sowing on a practically unlimited field, few indeed there are 
among the scions of wealth upon whom the marriage vow 



140 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

can rest with due restraining force. On this phase of de- 
basement of the "higher life/' read a word from Upton Sin- 
clair : "But Montague was familiar with the saying, that if 
you follow the chain of the slave, you will find the other 
end about the wrist of the master; and he discovered that 
the Tenderloin was wreaking its' vengeance upon Fifth ave- 
nue. It was not merely that the men of wealth were carry- 
ing to their wives and children the diseases of vice; they 
were carrying also the manners and the ideals." . . . 
"Smoking and drinking and gambling of women, their hard 
and cynical views of life, their continual telling of coarse 
stories/' And then to sum it all up, he says: "No wrong 
which they could do to the world would ever equal the 
wrong which the world has done to them, in permitting 
them to have money which they had not earned." 

And thus we have it that this appalling nation-wide de- 
generacy is wrought at one extreme among the enslaved, 
exploited producers of fortunes and at the other extreme 
among those who possess them. Nor is any intermediate 
class of our people exempt from the consequent degradation 
of this capitalist system of industry, for as has already been 
intimated, the problems of corruption, unemployment, 
slavery of men, women and children, and of the liquor traf- 
fic are but some of the tributaries of this one. 

In the light of facts, even superficially viewed, how evi- 
dent it becomes that what we term morality, and our whole 
code of ethics, has an economic basis. How could such a 
code be pure or wholesome resting as it does and as do our 
ideas of proper relations between human beings — of right 
and wrong — upon such an infamy as the exploitation of 
human labor? 

These great wrongs, born of this industrial system, will 
disappear with the system ; but not while that obtains. As 



DEGENERACY 141 

long as that $8 worth (or whatever it may be in exact fig- 
ures) passes from the producer into the hands of the ex- 
ploiter, its consequent curses are upon us. Therefore we 
demand the collective ownership of the sources of life, the 
complete substitution of a co-operative system of industry 
for this vice-breeding system of capitalism. 



XL 

INDUSTRIAL WARS. 

As has already been shown, since the advent of labor- 
displacing machines, capitalism has to a greater or less de- 
gree been constantly menaced by an unemployed army 
among the working class. Attention has previously been 
called to various circumstances that have in the past sufficed 
to prevent that problem's reaching such a stage of acuteness 
as makes revolution in industrial methods a necessity. 
Chief among these vents to the labor market were found 
the industries made possible or greatly extended in scope 
by the use of machinery, new industries for supplying the 
needed machinery, and the vast undeveloped continent to 
which the surplus laborers immigrated. 

As long as these new fields served to absorb the displaced 
laborers to such a degree as to prevent a competition among 
the sellers of labor-power that was destructive of such a 
standard of living as was satisfactory to laborers generally, 
such as appealed to them as consistent with prevailing con- 
ditions, no occasion existed for drastic measures on the 
part of laborers to acquire or maintain what they call "a 
fair day's wage for a fair day's work." But with the chang- 
ing conditions of developing capitalism, with the diminish- 



142 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

ing opportunity to "go west and grow up with the country," 
with the relatively decreasing demand for extension of ma- 
chinery, factories, railroads, etc., labor soon faced the neces- 
sity for organized action along lines of self-defense. What 
they really faced was necessity for entry into the most 
momentous class struggle of history; but their vision was 
far too limited to comprehend a proposition of such propor- 
tions as that presents. They were formally taking the 
initial steps in a world wide industrial revolution; they 
thought they were simply forming craftsmen of every trade 
into labor unions. 

Unions in some crafts have existed in this country from 
early times, but nation-wide unionism, embracing every 
craft from boot-blacks to the most highly skilled workmen 
is a very modern institution and is as unqualifiedly a pro- 
duct of industrial conditions as is the millionaire. Develop- 
ing capitalism forced it into being just as it separated the 
users of the machinery of production from the ownership of 
the machines. 

The objects for which labor unions are formed are vari- 
ous, but they are all minor in comparison with and subor- 
dinate to the one supreme purpose — to maintain a standard 
of living, to keep up wages, to control the price of the com- 
modity labor-power. To accomplish this purpose, an organ- 
ization based on monopolistic principles is a prime requisite. 
And the strength and effectiveness of any union (in the 
craft form of unionism) is directly proportional to the de- 
gree of its monopolization of the available labor-power in 
that particular craft. Unless a union can effect to a con- 
siderable degree a monopolistic control of the labor market, 
it has but things of minor import for which to live. 

But despite the pressure of circumstances, many labor- 
ing men do not comprehend the necessity for organization, 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 143 

much less the causes that breed that necessity. Therefore 
attempt is often made to offset or neutralize the effects of 
this lack of comprehension through measures more or less 
coercive. Chief among these measures is objection on the 
part of the union men to working with those who refuse to 
assist in the struggle for the betterment of the conditions 
of all. 

These coercive measures are very naturally a source of 
bitter strife and contention among the laborers themselves. 
Nor should this excite our wonderment. When we recall 
the primal object for which unions are formed and then 
find that the most potent obstacle to their successful opera- 
tion is the non-comprehension or indifference of laborers, it 
is not a surprising thing that exasperation expresses itself 
in terms of compulsion. 

The bitterness manifested by union men toward those of 
their class who refuse to join with them is not an inherent 
characteristic of unionism, but rather a manifestation of the 
outcropping of human nature under stress of circumstances. 
Since economic conditions began to force capitalists into or- 
ganizations for self and mutual protection, the industrial 
highway has been strewn with wrecks of luckless wretches 
of that class who imagined they could "paddle their own 
canoes" against any current set in motion by the combines. 
They were "absorbed," or crushed and put out of the way 
without the privilege even of the repentant. The difference 
between the two processes of coercion is this : In the case 
of a union, coercion necessarily manifests itself against 
groups and in the open. It is therefore conspicuous, and 
the capitalists' press is a convenient medium for exploiting 
its odious features. In case of the capitalists, the coercing 
force is directed in secret and against isolated individuals. 
They "fail in business" because they cannot stand "the pres- 



144 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

sure of legitimate competition. " The fact is, both have 
acted and still act under pressure of economic necessity; 
and that is a condition that is not likely to awaken the finer 
sensibilities of our natures, one in which humanity is not 
wholly swayed by conscientious scruples. 

As unions gained in strength, the conditions that forced 
them into being unavoidably forced them into conflict with 
the exploiting employers. The relatively increasing number 
of wholly or partially unemployed intensified competition 
among sellers of labor-power and it is but natural that pur- 
chasers of that commodity should endeavor to take advan- 
tage of the condition of the market. The primal object of 
the union is to resist and if possible prevent such action as 
must result in lowering the laborer's standard of living. 
The struggle for supremacy was on — a struggle involving 
these diametrically opposite interests — a struggle in which 
each of the contending parties claims to be defending what 
of necessity is its rights. 

Many circumstances have led to open hostility between 
laborers and capitalists and the number of persons directly 
involved have varied from a few individuals to hundreds of 
thousands. But when less than a half dozen causes are 
enumerated, all others are relatively of little importance. 
First, an attempt to reduce the standard of subsistence by 
lowering wages or increasing hours for the same wage, the 
cost of living remaining constant. Second. A reduction 
in the standard of living resulting from a general rise in the 
prices of food stuffs, wages remaining constant. In such 
instances, a refusal to increase wages is equivalent to a cut 
under former conditions. Third. An attempt on the part 
of the union to force a reduction in the number of hours 
that shall constitute a day's work either with or without a 
proportionate change in wages. Fourth. An attempt on 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 145 

the part of one or more organizations to force recognition 
of the demands of some union through coercive measures 
brought to bear upon one or more employers in allied indus- 
tries — through the sympathetic strike. 

Through the years of developing capitalism, as the 
unions gradually grew in number and in strength, as the 
trusts formed and the organizations of capitalists were per- 
fected, strikes increased in number from year to year until 
they averaged for twenty years (1880 to 1900) more than 
one thousand per annum.* These industrial wars not only 
increased in freqnency but also in the number of laborers af- 
fected, in their period of duration and in intensity. They 
became in nature well nigh, if not quite, pitched battles ; not 
between a group of laborers and an employer, but between 
organized laborers and organized capitalists. From mere 
local affairs, they grew to embrace in a single conflict from 
one to several states and even to involve a great part of the 
nation. All manner of industries were more or less af- 
fected ; the coal mines, street railways, steel works, building 
trades, lumber camps, teaming, and railroads furnished the 
most conspicuous instances and involved the greatest num- 
ber of men. 

In these tremendous struggles between opposing eco- 
nomic forces, that laborers should be drawn into conflict 
with the organized powers of the government, both state 
and national, was inevitable. There are various reasons 
for this and they are conclusive : 

First. The present system of industry — the wage sys- 
tem — is the regularly established order. It is entrenched in 
law both constitutional and statutory. It rests solely upon 



*Labor Commissioner Carroll D. Wright in North American 
Review. 



146 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

one basic principle — the right of private ownership of the 
sources of life-sustenance. 

Second. As a corollary of this principle, and more, as a 
condition essential to it, there follows the right of the prop- 
erty owner to exploit the labor of the propertyless. 

Third. This exploitation is possible only as long as 
labor-power is a commodity to be bought and sold in the 
market and on such terms as may be agreed upon between 
the buyer and the seller ; hence the theory of "free contract." 

Fourth. As private property in our means of produc- 
tion is dependent upon exploitation of labor — is impossible 
without that right and privilege — it follows that any inter- 
ference on the part of a third party that abridges the privi- 
lege of the buyer of labor-power to purchase as he sees fit 
and where he can purchase most cheaply, abridges his prop- 
erty rights — is confiscatory. 

Fifth. As the foregoing are the industrial conditions 
that are entrenched in law — as they are the principles that 
governments are now organized to defend — it follows that 
labor unions are institutions that the industrial system does 
not warrant. They are incompatible with it ; they are out- 
laws from their inception. 

Sixth. Each laborer has the right in law to sell his 
labor-power when and where and on such terms as oppor- 
tunity affords. This condition is essential to the exchange of 
labor-power at its commodity value and that method of ex- 
change is essential to capitalism. In short, capitalism can- 
not tolerate a monopoly of the commodity labor-power in 
the hands of the commodity owners, the laborers; for that 
is the commodity from which the owners of property must 
draw their entire sustenance. 

Seventh. Labor holds these conditions to be unjust 
and wholly intolerable. Tt demands a voice in determining 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 147 

the value (or at least the price) of its commodity. Since 
this demand is essentially at variance with the fundamental 
principles of the system, is of necessity confiscatory, it can- 
not be granted. Therefore, the irrepressible conflict be- 
tween exploited and exploiters, between laborers and capi- 
talists. 

Eighth. Out of these opposing interests grows the con- 
flict into which the government's organized forces are 
drawn. Since the chiefest function of government is to 
maintain property rights, that is, to maintain the privilege 
of the exploiter, to uphold the present system of industry, 
it is impossible that its forces should be exerted in defense 
of those whose demands are incompatible with the system. 

Ninth. The owning class is necessarily the ruling class 
— the dominant power in government — and no class will use 
its power to accomplish its own destruction, or in any man- 
ner to its own injury. 

Here another point must not be overlooked. If the 
wage system is right, if it should be perpetuated, whatever 
measures may be necessary to maintain and perpetuate it 
are right. A measure that is necessary to sustain what is 
right, cannot be wrong. Likewise, a measure necessary to 
preserve a constitution or to uphold that which is constitu- 
tional cannot itself be unconstitutional. In contesting a dis- 
putable measure, or a questionable procedure, the only point 
at issue involves its necessity. There is no power granted 
by our national constitution for the issue of full legal tender 
paper money ; but when in the early '60's, congress ordered 
and executed such an issue, the Supreme Court held that 
the measure was one necessary to the preservation of the 
government under the constitution and therefore could not 
be unconstitutional. Again, while slavery was a constitu- 
tionally established institution, no court governed by that 



148 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

instrument could logically declare a statute unconstitutional 
nor a mode of procedure on the part of one or more persons 
as illegal, if it were apparent that the preservation of this 
institution — of owners' rights vested by it — was the ques- 
tion involved. Therefore the fugitive slave law withstood ju- 
dicial scrutiny. A black slave was a constitutionally estab- 
lished chattel. When it became necessary to take the stand 
that he could not cease to be a chattel because of his being 
taken across the Ohio River or over some state boundary 
within the nation governed by that constitution, the Dred 
Scot?, decison w T as but a logical sequence. 

Today the right of private property in the nation's 
sources of subsistence, that is, the right to exploit human 
labor, the right of property in the labor of the wage worker, 
is a constitutionally established institution. In fact, this 
is the institution that above all others it is the mission of 
that organic law to maintain. It follows, then, that no enact- 
ment nor no mode of procedure on the part of the capital- 
ist class — the owners of this property — can be declared by a 
court basing its decision upon that constitution to be irregu- 
lar or illegal if necessity for the preservation of these prop- 
erty rights can be shown. And at the expense of repetition, 
let it again be said, this property is not in material things ; 
it is vested in the right to consume the commodity labor- 
power. And as necessity presses, we find that our courts 
come nearer and nearer to expressing their decisions in 
these terms, just as in ante-bellum days they faced the 
certain necessity to decide that slavery was a national and 
not a sectional institution — that Dred Scott was everywhere 
a slave. 

Then it is not necessary (or soon it will not be) in case 
of a strike anywhere, that buildings, factories, mines or rail- 
ways shall be menaced or injured in order that the strikers 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 149 

shall be declared outlaws and the intervention of courts and 
militia invoked. The strikers may go away peacefully and 
refuse the use of their labor power; if it can be shown that 
their conduct in any manner is an infringement upon prop- 
erty rights, that it in any manner thwarts the purposes of 
this constitutional institution, they are breakers of law. And 
when it comes to the "Dred Scott" test of the wage system, 
it will be, it must be held that imprisonment in "bull-pens" 
without warrant or charge of criminality, deportation from 
home and state, or any other measure necessary to estab- 
lish the owner's privilege to exploit on what is practically 
his own terms is legal and constitutional. For the same 
basic reason — "infringement upon property rights" — the 
boycott and a long series of attempted "labor legislation" 
have been declared criminal or relegated by our courts to 
the unconstitutional waste-basket. 

Time was, in this nation, when if one form of chattel, a 
horse for instance, escaped across a state line and one should 
deprive it of food or water, he would be guilty of a mis- 
demeanor; but if another form of chattel came along, a 
black man, and the one guilty of inhuman treatment of the 
horse should furnish sustenance for the slave, the donor 
would be guilty of a felony. The opponents of such legis- 
lation might cry "unreasonable," "unjust" or "inhuman"; 
it mattered not. Necessity for maintenance of an institution 
of privilege does not yield to qualms of conscience. On the 
contrary, the privileged bring into play their organized and 
armed powers to enforce their decrees. And that they will 
do as long as they are in command of the forces and vested 
with power to legislate. 

Labor may cry out even in execration against the use of 
governmental forces to defeat its efforts to establish better 
conditions or secure justice for its membership; it may 



150 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

anathematize judges and courts; it may flood legislatures 
and congresses with petitions and protests — but to no avail. 
The nature of the institution in which labor-power is such 
an essential factor has been made sufficiently clear. It is an 
institution of privilege upon whose marrowy bone (that $8 
worth) the iron jaws have closed and they will release only 
when broken. Labor must learn that as long as delegated 
governmental authority is lodged by labor's vote in capital- 
ist officials, labor, in its fruitless contests with its employ- 
ers, is but reaping the returns of its own folly. 

And here it is not amiss to enter an earnest plea for 
patience on the part of those to whom has been given the 
power to comprehend the mission of "pure and simple" 
unionism with those barred by nature or by circumstances 
from understanding its apparently simple and essential pur- 
poses. Arguing from our original assumption, productive 
labor yields for the market $10 worth per day. It gets as 
its share simply the cost of the reproduction of labor-pow-er, 
the $2 worth, and passes over to the exploiter the other $8 
worth. The "pure and simple" unionist sees far enough to 
comprehend that his share, whatever it may be, is not "a 
fair division" of the product. He demands, say, that he be 
given $2.25 per day or, at least, that the $2 worth shall not 
be reduced; and he grows impatient with his fellow labor- 
ing man who cannot see so simple a proposition or who 
neglects or refuses to yield to its seductive allurements. 
The trade unionist's conclusions appeal to himself as being 
so self-evidently logical and necessity for his action so just 
and imperative that he even refuses companionship or any 
sort of effort conjointly with the fellow who will not see 
and act with him. But when the Socialist enters the forum 
and presents to this same "pure and simple" unionist the 
proposition underlying this volume ; shows him, or at least 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 151 

tries to show him, the real meaning, the absurdity of his 
$2.25 proposition ; even demonstrates to him the real nature 
of the struggle in which each is playing a preliminary role ; 
points the havoc wrought, the awful wrongs that accrue to 
his entire class by this "dividing up" process to which he 
has already too long submitted — when the Socialist presents 
his proposition, far more easy of comprehension for him who 
is subject to reason, and infinitely stronger as an appeal to 
his interests and the interests of his class and of humanity 
as a whole, this unionist rejects it with the insipid, thought- 
less, foolish, unreasoned assertion that some species or other 
of capitalist political organization is good enough for him. 
He makes just the reply that his exploiting master would 
dictate were he asked to do so. If there is wisdom in pa- 
tience, our "pure and simple" union brother might drink 
deep at the Socialist fountain. 

The attitude of the great mass of organized labor in the 
United States toward Socialism presents to the superficial 
observer a historical anomaly. Here is a mighty mass of 
humanity that has so far emerged from the thralldom of 
mental slavery that it can supply on demand men qualified 
for any possible requirement of the most extensive and com- 
plex system of production of all history. It can furnish (or 
could easily do so if wage workers were fully organized) 
every being necessary to the carrying on of all the important 
industries in every detail from raw material to consumer. 
It is schooled in the processes of organized industry and it 
is the class and the only class that knows the details of that 
work. So much is this true, to such an extent is industry 
today in the hands of wage workers of all grades, that if 
every owner of the great concerns were to die within an 
hour and the matter of their taking off be kept a secret, 
industry would move on unconscious of the "calamity" that 



152 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

had befallen it. The non-essentiality of bond and stock 
holders, of gamblers and speculators, of schemers and their 
raids to gain control, of voters and issuers of watered stocks 
and their criminal "business methods" in foisting them 
upon the people, of the whole round of endless, all-compris- 
ing, all-pervading plunder known as "business" is, with 
these workers, practically demonstrated. These workers 
know that industry is carried on independently of any func- 
tion fulfilled by any or all of these non-essential so-called 
"business men/' is carried on in large measure in spite of 
them ; that of matters essential to real industry, this mass of 
exploiters are as ignorant as the grain gamblers are of agri- 
culture. All this, to these organized workers, is common 
knowledge and, among the more intelligent of them, a mat- 
ter of ordinary comment. Yet so intense is the spirit of 
fetich worship among hundreds of thousands of them that 
they seem to imagine that without these extraneous job- 
owners their jobs might cease to exist 

Again, these workers know that they are constantly 
being mercilessly exploited and from that consciousness they 
garner strength for the tremendous struggles with their 
employers. They buckle on their armor and put up such a 
fight for an increase in wage of a few cents a day as, if it 
were directed against the whole system of the exploiters, 
would shake that structure to its foundation. They will 
fight to starvation's door for 25 cents' worth more of their 
labor product and sneer at the brother who even calls atten- 
tion to the greater sum exploited from the fruits of their 
toil; and then they assemble and repeat with solemn em- 
phasis, "no wage can ever be a just reward for labor" — 
thereby admitting all that the Socialist claims. 

They know that the propertyless of this nation must gain 
a livelihood in its industries ; and they find those industries 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 153 

involved in such a system that they are forced, on the 
ground of self-preservation, to limit apprenticeships and 
declare against trade schools — forced to adopt such meas- 
ures as may deprive their own children of even such scant 
opportunity as is open to themselves. They realize some- 
thing of the inability of capitalism to provide work for all; 
they have felt the blighting effect of intensified competition 
and shun it as a pestilence. They have full knowledge of how 
easily labor could supply every need of the nation could it 
but be properly organized; yet the suggestion of effort on 
their part to establish a system involving such organization, 
the suggestion of political action in the interests of their 
own class, excites thousands of them as might the presence 
of a Fury. 

They know, or by this time should have learned, that 
much of what seems success upon their part in increasing 
their nominal wage (the dollars or cents that they get per 
day) is neutralized by the masters by their putting up the 
prices of the laborer's sustenance. In this manner of combat- 
ing the unions' "success," the real wage (what the nominal 
wage will buy) is in some important instances actually low- 
ered.* The whole matter reduces to this, that while labor- 
power can be reproduced upon one-fifth of labor's product. 



* Omitting the relatively few and high salaried officials of our 
railways, the average wages paid all employes in 1895 was $2.02 
per day. Ten years later, 1905, this average was $2.25 per day. 
These ten years, therefore, show an increase of eleven and one-third 
per cent. But during this same ten years, the official reports of our 
government show (and our own experience proves them true) 
that the price of labor's subsistence advanced almost double that per 
cent. The increase in wage was only apparent; the real wage was 
actually lowered. 

By this process the unions would always be defeated and 
capitalists would be indifferent to union "successes" were it not 
that these increased prices excite opposition from a large ^ and 
influential faction of the capitalist class themselves. As above indi- 
cated, this plan of warfare is resorted to, but capitalists do not 
court it. In earlier times when industry was not so fully organized 



154 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

that is all there is in capitalism for the producer. No mat- 
ter what move labor may make upon the industrial chess- 
board, capitalism is rich enough in resources to play a check- 
mating pawn. 

Possessing the knowledge that is theirs — knowledge de- 
duced, as it were, from decades of experimentation; ab- 
sorbed as is their energy and thought in a conflict whose 
nature and final outcome are too apparent to admit of 
rational disputation, yet a large majority of organized labor, 
at this time, seem wholly oblivious of the part they are play- 
ing in the world's history. They seem utterly blind to the 
significance of events in which they themselves are among 
the chief actors. 

But there is reason for their short-comings. While they 
are not illiterate, they are not educated except in the pro- 
cesses of production — in what they have to do. Of general 
knowledge they possess little; from reasoning on a broad 
plane, they are in large measure barred. In their own im- 
mediate welfare and concerns they have and they evince a 
lively interest; but the future is something afar off — they 
see it as through a glass dimly. Owing in large measure 
to early training (or lack of it) and wanting in the experi- 
ence that certainly awaits them, hundreds of thousands of 
them live in the vain, delusive hope that somehow, some- 
where, some time, like the lucky man in the lottery draw- 
ing, they will land on flowery beds of ease — will get some- 



as now, it was not a practicable plan except in case of a quite 
general rise in wages. Competition among operators prevented its 
adoption by isolated manufacturers. It is apparent, however, that 
the practicability of this mode of procedure increases as capitalist 
organizations (especially trusts) are perfected. A rise in wages of 
workers in the oil industry would not long disturb the dividends of 
Standard Oil ; nor would that combine give much heed to the 
opinion of other capitalists as to its mode of meeting the "oppression 
of unions." 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 155 

thing for nothing and thus win promotion to the master 
class. A co-operative commonwealth does not, in their way 
of thinking, lie in the line of least resistance. It seems 
shadowy and afar off. But more than all else, they are 
utterly ignorant of what it means for them and their class 
and they are indifferent and indisposed to investigate the 
matter. They are content to eke out an existence and 
dream of impossible conquests as capitalists. 

Despite all this they are gradually awakening. Under 
pressure of economic conditions they cannot continue in- 
definitely to slumber. Through the more intellectual and 
thoughtful of their membership the light is breaking upon 
all. In the council chamber of the union they are learning 
of the mission for which they are destined — learning the 
lesson of the class struggle. 

Nor are they relatively more blind to the significance of 
passing events than are their masters. Immediate self-in- 
terest is a mighty factor in determining the course of the 
average individual, but a mind endowed with the power to 
reason from cause to effect, to generalize, cannot be wholly 
clouded by the influence of a few paltry dollars. The aver- 
age so-called business man realizes as little beyond the nar- 
row, insignificant sphere in which he operates as does the 
average wage worker. Inability to interpret contemporane- 
ous history is alike a characteristic of all classes. 

The industrial class struggle of the ages is on; all the 
years of strife between the employers and the employed is 
but one phase of it. Fundamentally it is a struggle for pos- 
session of the world's sources of subsistence. The basic 
question is, shall these be collectively owned and access to 
them be made free to all who desire to enjoy the things of 
life in proportion to his individual effort; or shall they re- 
main the possesion of a few and a medium for the exploita- 



156 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

tion of the many? It is, in its last analysis, a struggle be- 
tween the exploiting class and the exploited class. Condi- 
tions are so shaping that, historically speaking, it will not 
much longer be possible for both these classes to remain 
upon the industrial field. As the producing class is impos- 
sible of exclusion, it follows that the exploiting privilege 
must be abrogated. There is no alternative outcome of this 
world-wide movement, if civilization is to be perpetuated. 
While the exploiter is on the industrial field, he must be in 
command — he must dominate industry, he must dictate 
governmental policy. Clothed in the vestments of these 
powers, his privilege is secure. And it is to this fact that 
the unions, in common with the whole class of exploited 
humanity, are awakening. 

Power, organized power — that is the requisite to the sus- 
tenance of privilege. Today that power is back of the ex- 
ploiter and there it will remain until wrested from him. 
Under the constitution and laws of this nation as they are 
now formulated, the vesting of power is determined by the 
franchise of the people. Exploited humanity is learning 
that it has but to use that franchise and, if need be, compel 
obedience to law in order to clothe itself with authority to 
modify government in any particular or to any degree. At 
this stage of the contest, the use of the franchise by labor 
is the lesson of prime importance for it to learn. In the 
processes of acquiring such a schooling, in the initial steps 
of such a movement, one might logically expect the organ- 
ized bodies, those who come together regularly in counsel, 
those who fight through long and bitter contests with the 
masters on the economic field, those who are really and 
actively in the struggle for the final emancipation of their 
class, not only to play a leading role in the great drama, but 
to initiate and lead, not follow. In this, however, as in all 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 157 

great movements, the basic principles are too intricately 
involved in psychology, sociology and in historical deduc- 
tions generally to emanate from other than intellectual 
sources above and beyond the mass of wage workers. But 
when the deductions have been formulated and the inevi- 
table trend of events established beyond peradventure, when 
all this has been so simplified as are the principles of Social- 
ism at this time, that these laborers must finally adopt and 
act upon them goes without saying. 

As already stated, the means of conquest are vested by 
law in exploited humanity. Of this they are fast gaining 
knowledge and availing themselves of opportunity thus 
opened. But it must not be overlooked that capitalism is 
now in the saddle. It thrives upon the fruits of privilege ; 
and privilege of such proportions that by comparison any 
other ever granted dwarfs into insignificance. Undeveloped 
capitalism established such a system of government as leaves 
open a channel through which the full-grown system may 
be legally assailed and overthrown — universal suffrage. 
When we recall the unconscionable methods to which classes 
in all ages have resorted to maintain privilege once con- 
ferred ; when we consider the measures of disfranchisement 
already adopted and the constant tendency to encroach upon 
what now constitutes the people's liberty; when we take 
into reckoning the tremendousness of the stakes for which 
the political game is to be played, upon what can we base 
the hope that that channel, that avenue of attack will remain 
open? 

Will capitalism submit to the operation of the laws that 
itself enacted ? Will it leave vested in the people the rights 
that have been incorporated in our constitution and statutes ? 
In free schools, free press, free speech, universal suffrage, 
a legal count of ballots cast and submission to the will of the 



158 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

majority, is read the doom of capitalism — a revolution in 
industry by peaceful methods and wholly within the law in 
every detail. The spirit of labor will not always strive with 
capitalists upon the economic field ; it will soon take up the 
peaceful, legal method of the ballot — provided that gateway 
to the citadel is not closed. 

But exploited humanity is going to take that citadel. 
That is as certain as death. The capitalist system must go. 
Like the other problems that we have considered, this one 
of war between laborers and capitalists must be solved ; and 
when it is solved there will be left no warring factions. No 
system of industry, no nation can indefinitely withstand 
such a constantly increasing strain as these upheavals em- 
body. When the producing masses take a stand for the 
full social equivalent of labor's product instead of as now 
scattering their energies as a disorganized rabble or wasting 
them in endless and relatively fruitless effort to secure a 
mere fraction of what should be theirs, they are going to 
insist upon their rights and privileges as now guaranteed 
in constitution and law. This will pass the subsequent nec- 
essary mode of action on the part of labor up to the capital- 
ists. If the capitalists persist in the policy of abridgement 
of liberty and refuse to submit to the consequences of legal 
processes, then labor is simply compelled to enforce the ma- 
jority's decrees by such means as may be devised under 
stress of necessity. This consummation is devoutly not to 
be wished; but a deep-rooted and valuable privilege is not 
likely to be surrendered until all possible means for its reten- 
tion are exhausted. Capitalism will probably be found as 
devoid of conscience and as indisposed to consider any inter- 
ests except its own, as have been the privileged of all former 
time. Certainly its means for evasion of law are as varied 
as the days of the year. When these fail, they must set all 
law aside and openly crown autocracy. 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 159 

Let it be hoped that these surmises will prove to be 
erroneous. Let us hope that capitalists themselves may be 
brought to see the inevitable outcome of our industrial con- 
ditions, to discern the course of civilization ; and seeing this, 
they may realize the futility of attempts to stay the wheels 
of progress. The privileged in the past have never so dis- 
cerned, or as least have uniformly refused to act as such 
discernment would dictate. But knowledge is now broader 
and deeper and more widely diffused than ever before. The 
spirit of fraternity, the certainty of the oneness of human 
blood is rapidly gaining ascendency over the thought and 
conduct of men. A peaceful revolution is at least a pos- 
sibility. 



XII. 

INTERNATIONAL WARS 

It would be preposterous to deny that war has served a 
mighty purpose in the development, the evolution, of the 
human race. It is equally preposterous to claim that that 
institution will indefinitely continue to serve a like purpose. 

The first tribe that used the bow-and-arrow were at 
once led into new lines of activity. These lines extended in 
many directions. They entered into sports, recreation, pro- 
curation of food, defense against enemies, methods of war- 
fare and the handiwork of manufacture. Every new 
activity led to the discovery of previously unrevealed rela- 
tions and therefore to new lines of thought. This in turn 
called for extension of vocabulary and that meant greater 
exactness and refinement of verbal expression. That instru- 
ment placed this fortunate tribe on an intellectual plane far 
above that of surrounding savages and rendered its users 



160 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

in every sense the fittest to survive. The old foe so formid- 
able in combat, dependent upon brute force or more obso- 
lete methods, could no longer contest the field. And when 
this wonder-working device passed into the hands of neigh- 
boring tribes, the struggle over disputed territory — the 
struggle for existence — further developed the idea of organ- 
ized effort, the mental traits of cunning, courage and 
strategy, the physical qualities of hardihood, endurance, and 
exactness and refinement in muscular action. 

It must be kept in mind that development is dependent 
upon environment, ancestral and personal; or, as this is 
commonly worded, upon heredity and environment. Even 
a cursory view into the surroundings, the conditions of life 
among these early tribes, reveals them so barren of develop- 
ing forces or elements, as compared with those in which we 
are engulfed, that, with strife and war eliminated, evolution 
would have been practically if not entirely impossible. 

Every discovery, every invention, every improvement in 
mode or method of gaining a livelihood broadened environ- 
ment, enriched it as a thought producer, called for new in- 
stitutions and multiplied incentives to action. The effect of 
each of several of these inventions and discoveries was so 
revolutionary that it marks a distinct stage in racial develop- 
ment — for instance, the use of fire, the bow-and-arrow, the 
making of pottery, the domestication of animals, the grow- 
ing of cereals, the smelting of iron ore, the use of an alpha- 
bet, etc. And this enriching of environment has not only 
been accumulative, but has progressed in geometrical ratio. 
The last hundred years has witnessed as extensive and as 
potent modifications as thousands of years of our earlier 
history produced. Consider, for instance, the effect of our 
system of government, our means of production, transpor- 
tation and communication, and our public school system, 
elementary and restricted though it be. 



INDUSTRIAL WARS 161 

The barren environment of the peoples of the past called 
for war as a factor in the development of the race. In 
earlier conditions it unquestionably was an uplifting force. 
So doubtless at one stage was cannibalism. It supplied food 
and entertainment for conquering heroes. It made men 
more determined, more guarded, more sagacious in attack 
and in defense. So unquestionably was chattel slavery. 
These institutions have each played their part. They have 
assisted in the general elevation of the race to a certain 
level — to a certain enrichment of environment. Beyond that 
point they were no longer elevating in character, but became 
as a clog on the wheels of progress — a force for reaction, 
for retrogression rather than advancement. One of them, 
cannibalism, had served its purpose and was suppressed as 
an institution long before the stage of civilization was 
reached. The second, chattel slavery, projected itself far 
into our civilized era, clinging at isolated points until the 
chariot had rolled even into the age of machinery. 

These institutions have wrought their good and their 
evil and been relegated to the past along with theories of 
anthropology, cosmogony and the pantheon — all abandoned 
relicts of barbarism. Another still clings, dragging its 
deadly weight into an environment in which it should be as 
much out of place as an unbidden guest at a marriage feast, 
an environment that once enriched by a proper conception 
of justice would place it at par with cannibalism. That one 
institution — war — inherited through lineal descent from the 
remotest savagery is still with us. 

And upon what does it thrive ? What makes its retention 
possible, even imperative? No institution can stand alone, 
isolated from all others that constitute our social, industrial 
and governmental corporation. Each is intimately asso- 



163 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

ciated with another or others ; interdependence alone can 
sustain any one of them. 

In the discussion of the other problems, that upon which 
war is contingent, has already been made sufficiently plain. 
Strike from the list of our necessities a market for the pro- 
ducts of labor that the producers cannot buy, for produce 
that labor garners for the exploiters, and what cause is 
today left for war? The armies of the world now wander 
over the earth in quest of a single boon — market. Whether 
we find them in Turkestan or the Transvaal, in Egypt or 
India, in Morocco or the Philippines, in Cuba* or Korea, 
in China or Manchuria, market is the prize of the victor 
and its loss the humiliation of the vanquished. 

Developing capitalism, what a panorama ; increase in our 
power to produce, increase in capacity of labor-displacing 
machinery, increase in our surplus-product, increase in our 
army of unemployed, increase in necessity for foreign 
market, increase in Dreadnaughts, armies and enginery of 
war, increase in necessity for universal slaughter — what a 
sequence of circumstances ; what an outcome of our wonder- 
working industrial mechanism ! 

Today the Christian nations of earth vie with each other 
in the number of death-dealing monsters they can put afloat 



*The pretensions of capitalism that the war with Spain had k 
humanitarian basis are set at naught by Mr. Frederick Emory, chief 
of the United States Bureau of Foreign Commerce, in The World's 
Work for January, 1902, in which he tells us : 

"Cuba was, in fact, a stumbling block, a constant menace to the 
southward movement of our trade. To free her from the Spanish 
incubus was, therefore, a commercial necessity for us, and as we be- 
came more and more keenly alive to the importance of extending 
our foreign commerce, the impatience of our business interests at 
such obstruction was waxing so strong that, even had there been 
no justifying cause of an emotional kind, such as the alleged enormi- 
ties of Spanish rule or the destruction of the Maine, we would 
doubtless have taken steps in the end to abate with the strong hand 
what was seen to be an economic nuisance." 



INTERNATIONAL WARS 163 

and in the hundreds of millions each can squander in effort 
to bluff its neighbors in any contemplated move to make 
way for disposition of more produce — all openly preparing 
for the world conflict that with one voice they proclaim 
awaits us. 

Thousands are preaching that international disputes 
should be and could be settled by arbitration and that the 
nations should disarm. No greater folly is conceivable 
while capitalism is the order of industry. It is market that 
the United States must have, that England must have, that 
Germany must have, and so with Russia, Japan, France and 
even China. There is not enough of these coveted prizes 
for all — prizes that stand between "a nation's industrial 
triumph" and starvation. In their quest not one of the 
Great Powers dares to trust the consequences of arbitration 
and disarmament — that is, the organized greed that domi- 
nates these Powers dares not so trust. An all-conquering 
navy alone can claim their confidence. These governments 
have no more confidence in each other than have so many 
professional thieves or competing bands of highwaymen. 
And practically that is about their proper designation. They 
are but the organized instruments of the money-mongers — 
devout disciples of that Jesuitical creed, "the end justifies 
the means." The great exploiters of the various nations, 
the dominant power in each, the organized grafters of the 
world, have ambitions to gratify, want something that could 
not be obtained in the remotest realms of Justice ; therefore, 
when opportunity affords (like England's millionaires' in- 
terests in South Africa) they "have nothing to arbitrate." 
An army and navy is their sure reliance; and to make it 
doubly sure it must man the most Dreadnaughts. 

The private ownership of our means of production, and 
international war, are now as inseparably linked as any two 



164 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

institutions ever established by man. About the neck of in- 
dustry hangs this monster of savage origin; and there it 
will hang until the institution, capitalism, from whose foul 
breast it draws its sustenance, has been purged from our 
environing elements as have been others that have served 
their uesfulness. 

Then Socialists would not go to war if it were declared ? 
That depends on the cause. If our country were ruthlessly 
invaded (a circumstance well nigh beyond possibility), or 
if human rights or liberties were at stake (a circumstance 
not at all beyond possibility), the Socialist would step into 
the ranks and offer life if need be. But when called upon 
to slaughter his brothers and comrades in order to provide 
disposition for what this system of industry has compelled 
him to hand over to exploiting capitalists, he answers em- 
phatically, NO. There is too much in life for him to sac- 
rifice it for capitalism. He knows that if capitalists had to 
fight the wars of their own making, an ordinary French 
duel would be a sanguinary affair compared with all the 
patriotic blood-letting that would occur in line of battle. 

It has not been many moons since the money-bags of 
Germany and France were uniting in effort to drag those 
two nations into war over an opportunity to exploit some 
markets in northern Africa. But when the Socialists of each 
country, who represent the great mass of laborers, the stuff 
that armies are made of, took an open and emphatic stand 
against such proceedings and began to telegraph from as- 
sembly to assembly their congratulations to "our comrades'* 
upon the attitude each assumed, it did not require an ex- 
tended search to find a peaceful method for settling all "in- 
ternational differences." 

The battles of the world have ever been and ever must 
be fought by the toilers and, in largest measure, by the dis- 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC 165 

inherited of earth. Listen to the voice of a real and conse- 
quently a persecuted patriot that has come ringing down 
through the ages since 150 years before Christ:* "With- 
out houses, without settled habitations, they wander from 
place to place with their wives and children; and their 
generals do but mock them when, at the head of their 
armies, they exhort their men to fight for their sepulchers 
and the gods of their hearths, for among such numbers 
perhaps there is not one Roman who has an altar that 
has belonged to his ancestors or a sepulcher in which 
their ashes rest. The private soldiers fight and die to 
advance the wealth and luxury of the great, AND THEY 
ARE CALLED MASTERS OF THE WORLD WITH- 
OUT HAVING A SOD TO CALL THEIR OWN." 
There was not room in the Roman Empire for such a 
man and the ruling rich. 

When labor awakens to a realizing sense of the 
great struggle for which it is so rapidly forming, it will 
ring down the curtain on the last act of a hideous drama 
that has reddened the rivers with its blood that a privi- 
leged few might inherit the earth — and war will be no 
more. 



XIII. 

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

There is a story in Grecian mythology of a many-headed 
monster, Hydra, that took up his abode at the only w r ater 
supply of a certain people. One of the labors of Hercules 
was to despatch this beast. The difficulty attendant upon 
this task lay in the power of the monster to replace a severed 



* Tiberius Gracchus. 



166 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

head by one or more other heads. The "labor" was finally 
accomplished by crushing the thing, heads, body and all 
beneath a tremendous rock. 

The figure is apt for the purpose in hand and the atten- 
tion of our prohibition, pulverize-the-rum-traffic friends, is 
especially invited to it. 

The monster Hydra of today is an industrial system 
through which possession has been taken of our people's 
sources of life-sustenance. It is a many-headed monster 
and fully capable of producing substitutes for any that, by 
any sort of device, may be severed as long as the body re- 
mains intact. The body is the power and privilege to ex- 
ploit human labor — to amass dividends. 

Now, for the sake of argument, let us grant the possi- 
bility of success of a national prohibition party, the aboli- 
tion of the saloon — grant all that the prohibitionist asks. 
What has he accomplished? He answers, "I have cut a 
great head from the Hydra." Yes, you have cut off the sa- 
loon head, but what about its substitutes by the way of drug 
stores, "blind pigs" and "boot-leggers?" "They are not so 
bad." Let that be granted, too; but they are each a secret, 
insidious source of evil and there are three of them. We 
have now granted the best that prohibition could possibly 
do; therefore, we have a just right to make inquiry as to 
what it has not done. 

If you are sane and intelligent you will grant that the 
concentration of wealth-ownership in this nation is an evil 
that must be remedied; in fact you will know that it is in 
concentrated wealth that the power lies that upholds the evil 
you are combating — that upholds the saloon system. Put 
every drop of liquor in the bottom of the ocean — have you 
stopped wealth concentration? You tell us that if the la- 
bor of the nation were all sober, were freed from alcoholic 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC 167 

stimulants, it could produce on the average ten per cent 
more than when influenced by drink. Let us grant that. 
For whom would it produce the extra ten per cent? Who 
would own it when it had been produced? The producers? 
Not while labor-power is a commodity. The extra per cent 
would go to the exploiters, some of whose chief function- 
aries, advocates of the system that concentrates wealth- 
ownership, are prohibitionists. The only conclusion that 
can be drawn from your own argument is that, granting all 
you ask, this evil is augmented. 

Again grant all that you ask, are the conditions that 
would then obtain going to cure the unemployed and the 
panic evils? There are nearly half a million laborers now 
employed that your program would at once throw upon the 
labor market, at least nine-tenths of whom are unfit to make 
a living in other forms of industry — thanks to the qualifica- 
tion for citizenship that your "sacred system of industry'' 
provides. "Ah," but you say, "there would be more work in 
the manufacture of shoes, clothing, etc., for laborers would 
have more money to spend for such things if they did not 
drink." Grant it; and there are half a million more labor- 
ers at once demanding jobs. Can your industrial system 
absorb them ? No, the additional demand for produce could 
be supplied perhaps several times through any sort of well- 
directed effort of those now idle. It must be kept in mind 
that there are always now hundreds of thousands, yes, com- 
monly a million or more, and often several millions who are 
constantly or partially "out of work" — for whom the capi- 
talist system can but partially provide. These alone could 
easily meet all additional requirements that would result 
from "more money to spend." "Then you Socialists contend 
that those hundreds of thousands in the liquor business 
should be permitted to carry on this awful traffic in order 



168 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

that they may make a living ?" No, we argue nothing of 
the sort. We simply call your attention to a condition that 
must needs follow the enforcement of your demand while 
the system of industry which you uphold obtains. No, do 
what you will with the liquor traffic, you will not through 
such means affect the problem of the unemployed. 

And how about panics? They result from producing 
too much. Labor in a prohibition country would still con- 
sume its fifth, or whatever part fell to its share as the seller 
of its commodity. It certainly would get no more for that 
commodity than its value. What about the surplus ? Would 
it be increased or diminished ? The former is the only pos- 
sible conclusion. But this is a phase of matters political that 
ioes not concern you. You have no interest in the associa- 
tion of this liquor traffic with the system of industry that 
fosters such things. The system is good enough for you 
as long as your job, or your privilege to exploit labor, is not 
menaced. 

Then there is a billion dollars' worth of property in the 
liquor industry. Your policy confiscates that unqualifiedly. 
Your answer is that property that is being used to degrade 
mankind ought to be confiscated. Suppose we grant that, 
too. Now tell us if anywhere this side of hades there is 
any property that is being used for purposes of deeper or 
more thorough degradation, for more death dealing pur- 
poses than that in which we find the child and woman slave 
— the mills, mines, factories and sweatshops wherein they 
by hundreds of thousands are employed? If the products 
of this enslavement were as generally scattered and as con- 
spicuously displayed as is the effect of drunkenness, it would 
shame the prohibitionists and would probably awaken many 
of them to a realizing sense of the needs of the hour. How 
about confiscating these properties? Why, some of them 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC 169 

doubtless belong to members of the prohibition brand of con- 
fiscators. 

"But we are opposed to child labor; our platform so 
states," declares some prohibitionist. And what does your 
platform say about the system of industry of which child 
slavery is a regular and consistent part ? and that demands 
that you get your party into power in every state, county 
and city before you can enact and enforce after you have 
enacted your proposed legislation? The enemies of such 
enactments are the holders of the purse strings of the people. 
They are the chief beneficiaries of the present system of 
industry. They control the political machine and elect 
"servants of the public" for the express purpose of thwarting 
the enactment or enforcement of legislation adverse to the 
interests of themselves and their class. And you are uphold- 
ing the system of industry that thus fortifies your political 
enemies, that nullifies your own efforts. 

"But the saloon is a powerful means for the corruption 
of elections. We will stop that," says some thoughtless 
enthusiast. Are you sincere and simply ignorant in saying 
that if every drop of liquor were transported to Mars, we 
would, in the present system of industry, have pure elections, 
or that they would, to any appreciable degree, be purified? 
Elections are corrupted for the purpose of obtaining special 
privileges, franchises, etc. The saloon is used as a means 
to this end for one reason and one only — it is more con- 
venient and cheaper than some other means. Abolish the 
saloon and you change not men's ambition to own these 
things; you simply compel resort to the use of the means 
that ranks next to the saloon in cheapness and convenience. 

"Likewise," says a prohibitionist, "we are opposed to 
war." And in the next breath he denounces in unmeasured 
terms some enlightened citizen who is devoting his life 



170 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

in effort to abolish the thing — and the only thing — that makes 
war a necessity — capitalism. Put the liquor all in the sea — 
will that stop war ? Not while capitalist prosperity depends 
upon conquest and retention of foreign markets — not while 
capitalism is the order of industry. 

Yes, there are many heads to this Hydra, capitalism, 
and he winks at the puny efforts of the prohibitionist. "But," 
says some advocate, "we want, we must have prohibition 
now. We can't wait for the establishment of a co-operative 
commonwealth, we can't wait for the enforcement of the 
common remedy for all these evils. We must cure them one 
at a time." If we are to wait for the national success of the 
prohibition party in order to partially rid ourselves of one 
evil and a correspondingly long time to remedy each of the 
others, how many millenniums are to be consumed in such a 
process of procrastination? Has the prohibition party ever 
secured prohibition in any state, county, or even city of any 
note? Prohibition has been carried in such states as 
Maine and Kansas practically independently of any political 
organization, by the people who are opposed to the traffic 
on moral grounds, because of the self-evident evil of the 
thing ; and in the South as an economic necessity. In these 
contests the prohibition party, as such, was not a consider- 
able factor. The southerner must keep liquor from the work- 
ers in order to better qualify them for exploitation ; but we 
may rest assured the southern brand of prohibition will not 
seriously inconvenience the members of their "chivalry." 

Socialists are by no means oblivious to the devastation 
wrought by the rum habit; but we classify it where it be- 
longs, as but one of many evils consequent in large measure, 
if not entirely, upon an industrial system — the system of 
profit. The saloon business in its every phase, like any 
other business in capitalism, is run for gain, run because 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC 171 

there is a possible eight-cents profit in a ten-cent drink. So- 
cialism would abolish the saloon by abolishing the profit 
upon which it thrives. Then we would leave the question 
of a local dispensary and all else that pertained to it, as all 
such questions must ultimately be left, to the people of a 
locality to decide for themselves. 

With the saloon gone, there is left to deal with nothing 
that pertains to the traffic except the thirst for liquor for its 
own sake — the desire to drink for the sensation produced by 
the poison. Here again it is evident that a co-operative 
commonwealth would, in this instance as in others, fall 
heir to a lot of the wrecks of capitalism and be compelled 
to deal with them as best it could. 

But Socialism would accomplish various things that 
would soon do away with the evil entirely. First. As be- 
fore stated, it would at once eliminate the institution known 
as the saloon by eliminating the profits for which it is run. 
Second. It would abolish the social feature of the "drink" 
and in that alone prevent, in very large measure, the making 
of drunkards of young men and women. Third. With a 
very small fraction of what now goes to support parasites 
and idlers (an insignificant fraction of the $8 worth) it 
would establish recreative centers such as gymnasiums, 
reading rooms, lecture halls, theatricals, etc., that would be 
far more attractive than buying a jug of liquor and seeking 
some secluded quarters for a debauch. Fourth. It would 
abolish poverty and slavish toil — the chief causes of indul- 
gence in strong drink. Fifth. Socialism would not seek 
to change human nature. It is not human nature to be a 
drunkard, any more than it is human nature to keep a few 
hundreds of thousands of women and children at work in 
sweat-shops or mills and mines. Socialism would revolu- 



172 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

lionize the environment that breeds drunkards and sweat- 
shop workers just as cesspools breed maggots. Human 
nature would then assert itself along right lines. It is not 
human nature to do wrong — to maintain injurious*, abnormal 
relations between individuals or between men and things; 
but it is human nature to seek compensation for effort, no 
matter where that compensation is found, even though that 
reward may be so slight and strange a thing as a temporary 
surcease from the effects of toil or trouble or the sting of 
poverty by distortion of the brain with stimulants. A system 
of industry that lays rewards in the direction of wrong do- 
ing, that "puts a premium on every act that smells of hell,'" 
must needs lead human nature, must guide human beings 
into evil courses. The basis of morality, that from which 
we garner our concepts of right and wrong relations between 
things, lies in our environment; and the most potent ele- 
ments of that environment are vested in our industrial 
system. 

Sweden, even in capitalism, through the medium of a 
system in some features similar to the one that would natur- 
ally form a part of a socialist commonwealth, has in recent 
years reduced her distilleries from 23,000 to 132 and her 
national per capita consumption of liquor to less than one- 
third the quantity that obtained when her system was first 
inaugurated.* 

Attention should also be called to this fact, that while 
the men now engaged in the liquor traffic can plead justifica- 
tion for their opposition to prohibition on the ground that it 
is unjust to confiscate a business that, under license of law, 
was permitted to grow and absorb capital, and likewise un- 



: Henry Smith Williams, in McClure's for February, 1909. 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC 173 

just to deprive without recompense anyone of a means of 
livelihood long sanctioned by legal enactment, no such plea 
can hold against the methods of Socialism. Socialism would 
destroy alike the saloon business and the grocery business 
as they are now operated — as profit yielding concerns; 
but it would provide alike for the grocer and the saloon 
keeper (and for every one else) a means of livelihood bet- 
ter than that of which either would be deprived. Unlimited 
access to the means of production and the full social equiva- 
lent of one's labor — the least that Socialism can offer — . 
would make the average gain from a saloon or a grocery 
shop look small indeed. Socialism may take away a means 
of life, but it offers a far better one in exchange ; prohibition 
takes everything in sight and offers in return — the capital- 
istic labor market or the road. 

The trouble with the prohibitionist is that he knows 
nothing whatever of economics and consequently he no more 
thinks of associating the great evil of the rum traffic with 
our system of industry than with the differential calculus. 
The fact that it is but one head of a polycephalus hydra has 
never dawned upon him. When the saloon is out of the way, 
when men have better opportunity to work than to drink, 
when the certainty of a good home and the chance to enjoy 
the fruits abundant of his or her own industry is laid before 
each young man and woman, when avenues of recreation 
that are healthful, varied and inspiring are substituted for 
capitalism's dives and dens, when man's environment shall 
have been clarified of the dispiriting, enervating thraldom of 
today, when Socialism is the order of industry, the liquor 
question becomes one of easy solution. But as long as profit 
from its sale flows into the coffers of the dispenser, as long 
as poverty, wretchedness and toil is the allotment of the 



174 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

millions, as long as conditions of life are such as to invite 
the assuaging or drowning of weariness or memory or sor- 
row or despair or hopelessness in the flowing bowl, the 
drink habit is but one form of adaptation of life to the con- 
ditions in which it is engulfed. 



PART II. 

SOME VITAL TOPICS 

i. 

PROPERTY — COLLECTIVE AND PRIVATE. 

In Part I of this volume the principal problems that 
press for solution at the hands of the people of this coun- 
try (and other countries as well) have received special 
attention. It has been shown that they are but effects 
of a common cause. They are consequent on a system of 
industry and they can be solved only through an entire 
change — a revolution — in that system. By far the 
greater fraction of what labor produces is passed, through 
the operation of the present system, into the possession 
of the exploiters of toil. This was found to be an essen- 
tial consequence of a single condition — the private owner- 
ship of the nation's sources of subsistence. To this con- 
dition was traced every problem; of it each was born as 
legitimately as a child of wedlock. 

Since these problems have a common origin, it fol- 
lows that they have a common method of solution. 
Their origin lies in the privileges that constitute private 
ownership; their solution lies in the abolition of those 
privileges. It is certainly a waste of energy to attempt 
to remedy the evils consequent on the exploitation of 
labor by any means that leaves the exploiter in possession 
of the nation's resources when that possession is impos- 
es 



176 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

sible — is worthless — without the privilege of exploitation. 
It is exploitation of labor, the creation of surplus-pro- 
ducts, surplus-values, that must cease; and that cessa- 
tion is impossible as long as the means of production are 
privately owned. Through collective ownership alone 
can these evil-breeding privileges be abolished; therefore, 
that is what we demand. Until the fact of necessity for 
the abolition of private ownership in these things has 
found lodgment in a brain, there is little hope of finding 
an entrance or room for any other. If that necessity has 
not already been made clear, hope for the success of more 
extended efifort is abandoned. If that conviction is 
secure, all else is easy of comprehension. And let us not 
at this stage of discussion worry about how collective 
acquisition of the industries shall be accomplished. It is 
sufficient now to decide, to admit, that they must be 
acquired. 

Let it be understood, once and for all, that Socialists 
make no demand for collective ownership of any thing 
except the things from which the nation obtains its liveli- 
hood — the things used collectively in supplying the needs 
of humanity — the land and other natural resources, the 
factories, mills, mines, coal beds, oil fields, forests, the 
means of transportation and communication — the things 
upon which life in the aggregate is dependent. These 
are now privately owned and can be operated or used 
only for profit ; in collective ownership, profit would nec- 
essarily be eliminated. 

"Why would profit necessarily be eliminated"? asks 
some questioner. "We now publicly own parts of indus- 
tries and run them at a profit. Some English cities make 
such a profit from their municipally owned institutions 
that no tax levy is necessary. Public ownership does not 



PROPERTY — COLLECTIVE AND PRIVATE 177 

bar profit." True, and that is wherein it is in no sense 
Socialism. That is why Socialists have so little interest 
in it. In the capitalist system of industry, the tempta- 
ton to use these publicly owned utilities as profit makers 
is too great for resistance. That profit which comes so 
largely from the pockets of the numerous workers who 
must patronize these publicly owned institutions goes to 
pay by indirect means what the property-owners would 
otherwise have to contribute as a direct tax. The possi- 
bility of achieving just that result — an avenue of escape 
from the tax collectors — is the line of argument that 
wins the support of the propertied class of the cities in 
effort to secure municipal ownership of gas, water, light- 
ing plants, etc. Japan publicly owns more industries 
than any other nation and she is using them to exploit 
her people to the starvation point. She must have the 
profits to pay her war debts and to build enough Dread- 
naughts to withstand the caresses of her Christian friends. 

Socialism demands collective ownership as a means 
and the only means to an end. The end is to establish 
an industrial system in which labor-exploitation is im- 
possible — and therefore where profit is impossible. The 
old party advocates of public ownership "in spots" have 
no such ambition. Most of them thrive upon exploited 
labor, and wherein any species of public ownership deprives 
them personally of their exploiting privilege, they spurn it 
as a thing of terror. 

To understand the Socialists' position fully it is neces- 
sary here to recall several things that have previously 
been stated either directly or by implication. 

In order to carry on a civilized state of society, as for 
instance in the United States, the labor of a vast body of 
human beings is necessary. These must perform all sorts 



178 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

of labor both mental and manual. They must cultivate 
and garner all manner of the produce of the farm. They 
must dig raw material from the earth and shape it into 
useful things — do all things necessary to manufacturing. 
They must transport everything wherever needed, and do 
all that should be required in the work of exchange. 
They must educate the young and care for the afflicted. 
They must put in sewer systems and build railroads, 
homes and public buildings. They must do everything 
necessary to the maintenance of the race in the highest 
civilized state. All this is socially necessary labor, and 
those who do it are the socially necessary laborers. The 
total product of this labor is the total social product ; and 
no one kind, class, grade or craft of these laborers is in 
any sense more entitled to be classed as productive labor- 
ers than is any other. All necessary laborers are equally 
productive laborers. The labor of a teacher in educat- 
ing the young for future usefulness is just as essential to 
production in our civilized state as is the work of a 
miner, engineer, carpenter, manager, hod-carrier, scientist 
or inventor. 

Arguing from our original assumption, these neces- 
sary laborers receive as their share about one-fifth of the 
total social product. Whether that fraction is finally 
proven to be too great or too small does not materially 
concern us. We know that whatever it may be, it simply 
pays the cost of reproducing the necessary laborers. We 
also know that the remaining fraction, and much the 
greater fraction, goes for the support of non-essential per- 
sons, things and institutions. It supports, for instance, 
many times the necessary number of wholesale estab- 
lishments, retail concerns, banks and newspapers, thou- 
sands upon thousands of superfluous offices and business 



PROPERTY — COLLECTIVE AND PRIVATE 179 

headquarters, tens of thousands of needless so-called 
"professional men," builds every needless mansion and 
yacht, supports the profligate rich and buys every for- 
eign dude, — pays multiplied billions in dividends, interest 
and rent, makes possible and necessary the concentration 
of wealth-ownership and embodies in one whole ever}* 
industrial problem with which the world today is strug- 
gling. This we know and it is sufficient. 

Socialism has for its final purpose the organization of 
industry and society generally on such a basis as will 
eliminate the non-essential. It would (and will) so 
organize society that each member thereof must, in order 
to exist, perform some sort of useful, needful function. 
It does not propose to compel any person to do any cer- 
tain thing or particular sort of work. No such drastic 
measures will be at all necessary; no marshalling of 
laborers as in military regiments under compulsion to per- 
form certain duties, a la mode the "socialism" of Hon. 
W. J. Bryan will ever be in any manner an essential mode 
of procedure. But it does propose that each shall enjoy 
the social product of labor in proportion to his contribu- 
tion to that labor. 

When we say that in Socialism all must work or 
starve, we do not include those mentally or physically 
incapacitated. In a Socialist state, one would have to 
give in exchange for a commodity as much labor as would 
equal the social-labor embodied in it. For instance, if 
working with the best possible appliances (and any 
laborer not so working is doing needless labor, repre- 
sents a waste to society) a laborer in 10 hours can pro- 
duce 5 pairs of shoes, he could not have as his reward for 
that labor 5 pairs of shoes. For while he was making 
those shoes, educational work had to be done, hospitals 



180 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

had to be operated, the mentally and physically incapac- 
itated had to be cared for — all socially necessary labor 
that cannot be actually employed in forming raw material 
into useful things was being carried on; and the cost of 
maintenance of these things is a part of the cost of the 
social product. Our shoemaker might get 3 or 4 pairs 
of shoes for his labor and still get the full social equiva- 
lent of his product. Whatever was his reward it would 
be his private property. 

Then private property is by no means destroyed by 
Socialism. The fact is, so far as the great mass of hu- 
manity is concerned, Socialism would tremendously aug- 
ment private property. The cry of the capitalists about 
Socialism's destroying private property has its basis in 
the fact that the property created would belong to the 
creator and not to the exploiters — it would destroy their 
private property in labor-power. But certainly labor 
would find nothing to regret in that condition of things. 
There is here involved no question of the creation of 
private property; the matter that worries the capitalists 
is the manner of its proposed distribution. The would- 
be millionaire could not get it; therefore, he argues, it 
would not exist. Socialism demands the collective own- 
ership of the things that are now used as a means through 
which to exploit labor; or, to be more exact, the things 
used collectively — the sources of our subsistence and all 
sorts of public institutions. The equivalent of the shoes 
produced by the shoemaker would be his, and so would 
be anything else that he saw fit to buy with it, to ex- 
change it for. He could not invest it in an institution in 
which it were necessary to employ laborers to work for 
him, because the general reward for labor would be its 
full social product and he could not pay that and make a 



PROPERTY — COLLECTIVE AND PRIVATE 181 

profit. Without profit from their labor he could not em- 
ploy laborers in what we now know as a business or indus- 
try — or at least he would not if he belonged outside an 
asylum. But he could, with profit to himself and man- 
kind in general, invest it in a home, in travel, in learning, 
in an automobile, in any sort of property or thing that he 
desired that is not collectively used. 

In other words, in a Socialist state, labor-power ceases 
to be a commodity. In capitalism, one purchases labor- 
power and in consuming it (utilizing it), he makes it pro- 
duce several times the amount of value that he exchanged 
for it. He pays, say, $1.50 for the labor-power commodity 
and when he has consumed it, he has values that he ex- 
changes for $5. He can impose this condition upon the 
seller of labor-power because he owns the means for the 
consumption or utilization of that power. That owner- 
ship has passed entirely beyond the possession of the 
tool-user. When these things are collective property, no 
such imposition is possible. It would not be possible 
even if it were desired to operate this collective property 
at a profit. To whom would the profit go? To the 
owners — the entire population. A people as a whole can 
not exploit themselves. Exploitation can be accom- 
plished only as a privilege conferred upon a part of a 
people — the privilege to exploit the rest. But the "pure 
and simple" public ownership advocate wants a part of 
the exploiting mediums owned by the public and so run 
as to pay the public debts and thus augment the gains 
from what is still privately owned. He is willing that 
the public should acquire ownership in what is not to 
him a source of profit — almost any sort of industry except 
his own. We say to him: "It is your property — that 
is, your privilege to exploit labor — that we are after. We 



182 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

do not want any other of your belongings. If you have 
a home, you are fortunate and no one desires to disturb 
you in its possession. If you have a mansion, we do not 
want it; and when you have to work for your living in- 
stead of living from the toil of others, you probably will 
not want it either. In addition, you are welcome to as 
much of any sort of property that is not used for exploit- 
ing purposes as you can accumulate from your own labor. 
Its ownership can work injury to none. But you cannot 
own what others create unless they voluntarily give it to 
you. You cannot compel others to produce for your 
individual purse or bank account — you cannot own a 
collective necessity, an exploiting medium. These alone 
w r ould constitute collectively owned property; all else 
would be privately owned, or at least could be privately 
owned and would be as long as the people so determined, 
and no injury would be consequent upon that 
ownership. " 

Private property, then, in Socialism, would consist, 
first, of all such material things as a person desired to 
possess by rendering to society the equivalent of the 
social-labor necessary to produce them. This would 
place all necessary private property easily within the 
reach of all. No such opportunity is possible in capital- 
ism. Labor-power is now a commodity ; its reward is the 
cost of its reproduction. That condition is incompatible 
with, in fact, bars general accumulation. Second, every 
person in a Socialist state owns and every child born in 
it inherits the right of access to the sources of being — 
owns or inherits a certain and valuable mode of subsist- 
ence — owns or inherits an absolute safeguard against 
poverty with all its fearful inroads upon life, liberty and 
happiness. There is no such boon — such private prop- 



LABOR 183 

erty — within the bounds of capitalism. Third, every 
child born in Socialism inherits still another endowment 
such as capitalism cannot supply — the certainty of a 
training for life to the extent of its capacity — the richest 
endowment that man can confer. It inherits every 
proper right and privilege of life among a free, educated, 
self-dependent people — life among a nation of men and 
women, not of a relatively few millionaires and a mass 
of exploited dependants. Verily, there is private prop- 
erty that does not consist of material things and that even 
our reputed wealthy cannot possess. 



II. 

LABOR 

In this discussion reference is made only to useful 
labor, such as the carrying on of civilization demands — 
such as will be carried on when society is so organized 
that the wastes of capitalism are eliminated. 

The various units of our society have desires and 
needs that they wish to gratify, and these units possess 
the mental and physical qualities necessary for the grati- 
fication of every need. That is, labor-power, the ability 
to produce, is abundant for every requirement. Social- 
ists charge the capitalist system of industry, first, with 
inability to develop this power to the highest state of 
efficiency; second, with inability to properly use and 
direct it even in its present undeveloped state ; third, with 
inability (impossibility) to use it at all except as it can 
be made to produce surpluses, profits, for the owners of 
the means for its utilization. 



184 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

Again, proper, up-building, healthful desires multiply 
with the possibilities of their gratification; and the degree 
of development of such desires and the means for gratify- 
ing them distinguishes the civilized man and his enriched 
environment from the savage and his barren surround- 
ings. Civilization is doing its best work wherein the 
balance between desires and the means for their gratifica- 
tion is so maintained as to develop the best effort for 
attainment on the part of all the millions of our people 
Where the means for the gratification of desires are un- 
limited, desires become excessive and abnormal and their 
gratification destructive of potential development along 
proper lines. At the other extreme, where the means 
for gratifying desires are dwarfed and stunted, so are the 
mental and physical wrecks that these conditions produce. 
Therefore, degeneracy in the palace and in the slum. 

The Socialist holds that despite all that is squandered 
by the rich, despite all surpluses sold in foreign markets, 
and despite all unsalable accumulations that breed panics 
and starvation, this nation has never produced sufficient 
commodities to supply the desires that make for the most 
fruitful advancement. And as for the distribution of 
those commodities, as for the gratification of desires such 
as those for which commodities should be created, it is 
enough to say that progress has taken place in spite of it. 
The nation has never worked to anything even verging 
upon its potential capacity. Millions of its people do not 
know how to work at anything that civilization should 
demand to be done; millions more are wasting energy 
eking out an existence by obsolete, wasteful methods, and 
still other millions are idle all or part of the time. There 
is no ground for doubt that through thorough organiza- 
tion of all ablebodied beings equipped with the best pos- 



LABOR 185 

sible appliances, and a work day of the hours that now 
constitute the average day for laborers, the people of the 
United States could produce at least four or five times 
the present annual product. And it is timely here to sug- 
gest that such a product owned by those who produced 
it might result in a picnic but not in a panic. In the 
present system of industry, it would be a calamity that 
could logically have but one of two effects — general star- 
vation, or the overturning of the nation in bread riots. 

But such a product would never be a necessity; there- 
fore, neither would be the labor required to yield it. 
Nor would double, or more than double, the present pro- 
duct be necessary to meet every need in real progress — the 
building of the best manhood and womanhood — the 
equipment of the masses for what Spencer calls "com- 
plete living." It is evident, then, that in a state organ- 
ized as Socialism demands — stripped of all capitalistic 
waste elements — an average work day of three or four 
hours and a distribution of the resulting product accord- 
ing to the deserts of each producer would yield results 
wholly unattainable in the present condition of society. 

Men and women labor in the industries to earn a liv- 
ing. If a livelihood could be acquired through less toil 
of course advantage would be taken of such opportunity. 
They now labor, say, ten hours. They can then go to the 
market and purchase what two of those hours produced, 
and yet that product supplies them a living. Out of that 
scant product the millions of laborers must accumulate 
their private property if they ever have any. But it must 
here be recalled that it is not the mission of capitalism 
to supply laborers with means or opportunity for the 
acquisition of property. That is not necessary to the 
reproduction of labor-power. If these same millions 



186 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

could consume the product of eight hours instead of two, 
or such other hours as they saw fit to work, if there were 
no parasitic exploiters that they must support, would 
not the resulting effect upon their private holdings be 
very favorable to them? Would a laborer continue to 
work such long hours? Yes, if he needed for his own 
use the equivalent of such a product. Otherwise he evi- 
dently would shorten his labor day or work less days, 
and he would not have to strike in probably a fruitless 
effort to gain the reduction. 

The system would be self-adjusting. There could 
not occur a general overproduction, and a few years of 
experience in organized direction of labor would prevent 
an over-supply in any line. If a man worked time or 
overtime, it would be because he personally desired to 
consume in some manner the equivalent product; hence, 
consumption would always average to equal production. 
If three hours' work per day would average to produce 
all that the nation desired to consume, there would exist 
no necessity for an average day's work of more than three 
hours. Then if one desired to work "two days in one" — 
to work six hours per day for a time — and thus accumu- 
late a demand against the social product, there need be 
nothing to prevent his doing so. His desire is for extra 
things that he will in his own time and manner consume. 
He may want finer furnishings for his home; he may 
desire to take a day off and see something of other coun- 
tries. Whatever he determines, the extra product will 
in some form and manner always be consumed. Of 
course laborers could not all "lay off" at the same time, 
nor would they so desire. If it were necessary to regu- 
late such matters authoritatively, that need work no hard- 
ships. 



LABOR 187 

Access to the industries must be made free to all. 
Each may average to work as much or as little as he 
pleases, but what he is privileged to consume must be 
the equivalent of what he produces. Each then is "the 
builder of his own fortune." His private property would 
depend solely upon his own effort, his own work, and not 
upon his working others. "But," says one, "if three 
hours' labor per day would supply all one needed, people 
would get lazy and indifferent." The fact is, the breeder 
of carelessness, indifference, lack of interest and ennui 
among laborers is long hours, not short. A large major- 
ity of all fatalities and accidents occur during the last 
hours of the present long days of toil. Persons seriously 
suggesting such a thought are generally those so inured 
to capitalism that their conception of life is one spent in 
the industries, toiling to create millionaires and accepting 
a crust for their own portion. To prevent one's getting 
lazy, he must be forced to live in a shed while he builds 
mansions for the exploiters of his labor. The thought is 
not only illogical; it is barbarous and repulsive to intel- 
ligence. There is no other incentive to effort so potent 
as the certainty of reward; in fact, hope of or certainty 
of reward in some form is practically the only incentive. 
That certainty Socialism would offer, and the offer would 
yield its fruits. 

If there were nothing in life to engage one's attention, 
to occupy one's time — to work at — except the industries, 
except the getting of a living, there might be something 
of substance in the "production of laziness" idea. In So- 
cialism, work in the industries would be very much of 
the nature of an incident in one's career. Now it is the 
whole determining factor. There would be time for home 
beautification and homes to beautify. There would be 



188 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

time and opportunity for mental and physical improve- 
ment and an early training that would qualify one to use 
them. Of course, for a time, the wrecked relicts of capi- 
talism would have to be dealt with, but that would at 
the worst be but a temporary matter. 

But grant for a moment that enervation of the race 
would result from the inauguration of Socialism and let 
us question what the admisison implies. To so contend 
one must hold that a rising generation of Americans can- 
not be trained mentally and manually to make proper 
use of time not spent in the creation of a plutocracy, in 
supporting the industrially needless ; or what is the same 
thing, that if labor were granted a remuneration three or 
four times what it now receives, though it were educated 
and trained to its fullest capacity, it would degenerate. 
Instances have occurred, notably in remote mining 
regions, wherein wages, for quite a series of years, were 
far above the average, but there is no record of any re- 
sultant enervation among the recipients. The hypothesis 
also implies that laborers are retained at a higher stand- 
ard of manhood when kept in comparative ignorance and 
robbed of the larger fraction of their labor product than 
would obtain if they were far better mentally equipped 
and granted the greater returns. Is this possible? If so, 
then, in Socialism, it might be found necessary to con- 
tinue the extra hours of toil and then throw the resulting 
surplus into the sea. Absurd as this seems (and is), that 
disposition of the product would be far better for all man- 
kind than to do with it as we now do — turn it over to 
those who do not create it. 

If Socialism is not able to ward off enervation, where- 
in will lie the cause of that inability? It will be because 
and only because there is not sufficient requirement for 



LABOR 189 

labor in the industries. And why not enough labor? 
For the reason that so much work is done through the 
medium of machinery instead of being done by hand 
methods. It has already been made sufficiently clear that 
the increased product due to the use of machinery can- 
not, as now, continue to accumulate in the hands of a 
relatively few owners of the machines. Then if that pro- 
duct cannot pass into the possession of the masses with- 
out dwarfing them mentally and physically, it is clear 
that the Chinese solution of the machine problem — its 
destruction and a return to hand methods of production 
— is the only alternative. Capitalism and the machine 
cannot much longer abide ; if Socialism and the machine 
are incompatible, then the machine must go. Is civiliza- 
tion ready to grant that conclusion? Not at least until 
experimentation has demonstrated necessity for such 
measures. Thus the proposition of enervation dissolves 
into the ridiculous. As has already been suggested, capi- 
talist methods of education, of life, of toil, of entertain- 
ment, of spending hours outside of factories, mills and 
mines; capitalist environment with its money-making 
dives and dens, its corrupting, seductive institutions 
based solely on profit, its meager preparation or total lack 
of preparation, of the young for citizenship and manhood 
generally, has for so long been instilled into human ex- 
perience and thought that it is but natural that mankind 
should find difficulty in effort to divorce its thought from 
all this hideousness and conceive of conditions that will 
naturally follow the elimination of human parasitism. 
The poor, deluded mortals imagine that human nature 
must change before a system of justice can be estab- 
lished; as though human nature could change without 
first changing the environment that molds and develops 



190 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

those qualities and characteristics that constitute human 
nature. 

"But some would be lazy and refuse to work," says 
some soft-handed capitalist. Why should that concern 
us? Each will be rewarded, will be privileged to con- 
sume, according to his contribution to production. If 
one sees fit to starve voluntarily, the sooner humanity is 
rid of him the better. That is no concern of yours except 
in so far as such things appeal to your purely human- 
itarian instincts. If self-dependence such as Socialism 
must impose, aided by scientific treatment, if need be, 
does not cure such relicts of capitalism, does not avert 
such atavistic tendencies, they are incurable and the dis- 
ease must do its work. 

"If one were allowed to work more than another, we 
would have inequality of possessions as now — we would 
still have rich and poor," says some property-monger. 
All poverty would be voluntarily inflicted upon one's 
self and such poverty is not a subject for charitable con- 
sideration. And as for riches, they would have to be 
acquired by one's own labor and are not liable to be of 
enviable proportions. Riches are not accumulated in 
that way. To get possession of even one million — a very 
insignificant fortune these days — one must clear above all 
expenses one hundred dollars for every working day for 
over thirty years. How evident it is that others must be 
worked in that process, that he who amasses it gets some- 
thing (practically everything) for nothing. All accumu- 
lations would be in non-exploiting form, and why should 
such ownership annoy other people? Capitalism seems 
to some people to be so good, so desirable, that if Social- 
ism appears to retain to any degree even one minor fea- 



LABOR 191 

ture of it, that retention is sufficient to condemn the 
whole proposed system of the Socialists. 

If three or four hours were established as the standard 
or average duration of a day's labor, were found sufficient 
for all purposes of production, it does not by any means 
follow that that many hours need constitute a day at all 
sorts of labor. Some kinds of work are much to be pre- 
ferred to others, yet each should be free to choose for 
himself or herself a place in the industries. Some hold 
that if an average of three or four hours per day (and 
that would be abundant) would supply all needs, the sort 
of work should not be a consideration. All should be 
ready to volunteer for any calling. But it must be kept 
in mind that it will be necessary to deal with persons as 
they are and not as they should be. The sort of work 
would be considered and seriously too, and the matter of 
ready volunteers is very problematical. All difficulty 
thus arising could easily be met by grading the hours 
that shall constitute a day's work according to the gen- 
eral desirability or repulsiveness of the task. No work is 
so undesirable that a shortened day (greater reward), say 
to two hours, would not attract all needed workers; 
while, in some cases, it might be necessary to establish 
some grades of work on a five or six-hour basis in order 
to prevent an oversupply in that calling. A brief experi- 
ence would soon determine all this in such a manner as 
to leave each free to choose as his tastes might dictate. 
No necessity for compulsion need exist. Again, if one were 
properly educated, not simply molded into a part of a 
machine, a change of occupation would not be a matter 
of great moment or inconvenience. Adaptability would 
be readily acquired. Whether this method of dealing 
with the question will be adopted or not is a matter for 



192 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

determination, like many others, when that determination 
is necessary; but we know that it could be met in this 
way and that it presents a problem of no great moment 
for an industrial congress. A disposition of this matter 
of grading labor after the plan here suggested would re- 
sult in the most undesirable kinds of work being done 
by the most intellectual members of society — by those 
who know best how to utilize time for their own physical 
and mental betterment. Of course the natural extension 
of the use of mechanical devices would very rapidly 
reduce unpleasant or laborious tasks to a minimum. They 
would well nigh if not entirely in time disappear. 

It must not be overlooked that the matter of dealing 
with different kinds of labor would be much simplified by 
the fact that the part one assumed in the work of produc- 
tion — the necessary labor — in a co-operative common- 
wealth would have no bearing whatever upon his social 
standing. Now it is practically the determining factor — 
a very natural consequence wherein some have to pro- 
duce a living for others — wherein the conditions of slave 
and master obtain. 



III. 

THE FARMER 

Those who have not followed these discussions with 
analytical eye might assume that the farmer has not been 
given due consideration. While he, for obvious reasons, 
has not been especially designated, he has been constant- 
ly in mind, and much of the argument advanced applies 
as directly to him as to the other members of exploited 
humanity. 



THE FARMER 193 

There are farmers and farmers. There are land own- 
ers who reside upon their holdings but who no more 
think of turning a furrow or tying a sheaf than does some 
large factory owner or stock holder of entering that fac- 
tory and actually doing needful labor. These are owners 
of our sources of subsistence which they use solely as 
exploiting mediums. They are not the farmers here to be 
considered, nor do they any more represent or typify the 
great mass of humanity who do the productive work of 
agriculture and grazing than a Morgan typifies the steel 
workers. 

For the wage worker, it is clear, there is nothing in 
industry but subsistence; for the tenant farmer, it goes 
without saying, there is, there can be nothing more. And 
there is certainly little evidence that the small land owner 
who works for a living has fared much better in the accu- 
mulation of material wealth. He is directly or indirectly 
the prey of about every form of trust and combine; he is 
among the most liberal contributors to profit and interest 
funds. He has no voice in determining the price of what 
he buys or what he sells. He receives his purchases from 
the hand of one monopoly; he passes his produce into the 
keeping of another. And by the time the railroads, the 
milling trust, the meat trust, the implement trust and the 
grain speculators and gamblers get through with him, 
he finds that he has left just about the equivalent of an 
average laborer's job — enough to reproduce his kind ; and 
it keeps him hustling to do that. His boys grow to 
young manhood and desert the homestead as do rats a 
leaking ship. There is little attraction there for them. 
The hours are long, the work is disagreeable, dirty and 
laborious. A few of them are found in factories, many 
of them on railroads and street car lines. There their 



19-1 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

remuneration is at least equal to the net returns from the 
farm, the work is more pleasant and they see far more 
of life — live closer to civilization. They prefer the lash 
of the industrial boss to the proverbial "independence of 
the farmer/' 

The independence that characterized the agriculturist 
of former days has practically passed away. Capitalism 
is not curbed by line fences. The tenant farmer — and he 
works about half the land of the nation — is well nigh if 
not fully as much of a subordinate as the grown factory 
slave; and the "land owner" under mortgage carries the 
regulation ball and chain. Then, over all, the usurping 
trust asserts its uncompromising, tyrannous sway. Occa- 
sionally the agriculturist buckles on his armor for inde- 
pendent economic and political action, as in the Grange 
and the populist movements, only to learn that while the 
great exploiters are on the field, though he may here and 
there gain a temporary, unimportant advantage, he is 
battling with a thoroughly equipped, trained, conscience- 
less, sleepless combine — the political machines of capital- 
ism. His "conquest" is brief and practically fruitless. 
He learns that he might just as well harken to the ad- 
monition of his national representative, Secretary Wil- 
son, and "keep out of the clouds; keep in the furrows." 
And the Secretary might with propriety have added : 
"That is where you belong. It is your function to grow 
grain; leave everything else to the gamblers and those 
whose trade is politics." The fact is, the farmer is no 
part of the great business world. He is wholly without 
that sphere and, like all others so destined, is a prey to 
those within the charmed circles. 

The Socialists, in most countries where they have 
gained the greatest number of adherents, have not made 



THE FARMER 195 

as relatively rapid progress in proselyting among the 
agriculturists as among those engaged in other forms of 
industry. This is probably for two reasons: In propa- 
ganda work, the farmer is not as accessible as the wage 
worker or even the small business man in the centers of 
population. In the second place, the small land owner 
feels that he has a grasp upon a means of life — a life 
tenure on a job even though it be a poor one. The task 
may be hard, but (if unencumbered by mortgage) it is 
not in the shadow of a master's discharge; it is at least 
his. He is disposed to suffer the ills that be, rather than 
fly to those that he knows not of. Through capitalistic 
sources there has been implanted in his mind that the 
"confiscating Socialists are after his small competency" 
and, as he is practically unfit for any other calling, and 
utterly ignorant of what Socialism has in store for "him, 
he fights shy of the new, revolutionary faith. 

But thus far in the American movement, the farmer 
has been found as easily approachable as laborers in any 
other calling. In the Grange and the populist cam- 
paigns, he learned some valuable lessons, and rapidly he 
is coming to realize that he has a common cause with the 
rest of the exploited masses. The necessity for govern- 
ment ownership of the trusts is brought home to him 
through practical channels ; and from that conviction to a 
sense of what must logically follow the adoption of such 
measures — to the entire plan of Socialist organization of 
industry — is but a brief step. A few years' experience 
with trusts, money lenders, and organized meat and grain 
gamblers has removed from his mind all terror of any 
form of "confiscation" even remotely suggested by the 
Socialists. He has too long been subjected to the real 
thing as practiced through capitalism. 



196 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

At its worst, what has a farmer to lose by the estab- 
lishment of a co-operative commonwealth? For illustra- 
tion, suppose that today the government, or, for that 
matter, any absolutely responsible corporation, should 
send agents to the farmers of the country with this propo- 
sition: "We want a deed to your land, and in payment 
we offer to you and your sons and your sons' sons in per- 
petuity one dollar per hour for every hour that you desire 
to work and you may work on the average as many or as 
few hours as you see fit." Now the farmers of this 
nation who would not accept that contract in exchange 
for their land holdings, say "aye." What are these land 
holdings? A means of livelihood. What is offered in 
exchange for them ? Not a cent in cash until it is earned, 
yet a means of livelihood that far exceeds in value the 
land possessions. How many of these farmers would 
go to court with the plea that even the forcing of such 
conditions upon them was in any sense confiscation 
Yet the fact remains that a co-operative commonwealth 
that would not make better provision for every farmer 
than that suggested in this hypothetical offer would be a 
failure. We know that with industry thoroughly organ- 
ized, with the needless, wasteful and parasitic elements 
all eliminated, the people of this country could easily 
make every hour of productive labor yield the doer there- 
of far more than can be purchased at this time for one 
dollar. Let a farmer once realize what this means for 
him and his descendants and he is ready to make short 
work of the system of capitalism. 

There is no doubt that in the organization of a co- 
operative commonwealth, whether that organization 
cover a period of long or short duration, the land offers 
by far the most complex and difficult problem. Practi- 



GOVERNMENT 197 

cally all other industries are already so fully organized 
that if the present hours and wage scales were retained, 
the change would scarcely be perceptible. But the capi- 
talistic land scheme is disorganization gone made. Not 
that the people will want to cling to their holdings. The 
younger generations now desert them for fifty dollars 
per month, or little more, as street car conductors. More 
difficulty will be encountered in keeping people on the 
land than in getting them off of it. But to organize the 
agricultural industries so as to use to the fullest capacity 
modern machinery and scientific methods — to eliminate 
the incalculable wastes everywhere now so evident in this 
tremendous thing — will be a task of far greater propor- 
tions, will require more skill, more tests and experimen- 
tation, more time and thought than all other industries 
combined. But it is a task that must be carried out to 
its uttermost limit and no other field of human activity 
will yield such rich returns for the labor required to per- 
fect it. And when it is finished there will not be found 
a dozen or more different sorts of stuff growing upon 
every insignificant patch of ground commonly not prop- 
erly adapted to any of them and hedged in by expensive 
and unnecessary fences ; nor will meat be provided from 
stock reared in regions of long winters where they must 
be fed from labor's product for months of every year. 
Capitalism, that is, industrial anarchy, alone makes such 
wastes necessary or tolerable in the twentieth century. 

IV. 

GOVERNMENT 

Government may be defined in general terms as such 
organized means or powers as the people of a political 



198 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

division use in enacting, interpreting, and enforcing their 
laws and in perpetuating their institutions. 

Government implies organization for definite purposes 
and the institution of definite means for carrying out 
those purposes. Its object is to establish and maintain 
certain relations between human beings that are desig- 
nated as "rights" and its forms have been as various as 
have been man's conceptions of what should constitute 
those "rights." 

In some countries, "rights," as locally and, historically 
speaking, temporarily defined, are maintained by vesting 
in one person of certain parentage and reputed heaven- 
ordained mission supreme power over all others, their 
"rights" to life, liberty and worldly possessions being 
subject to his will. In some other countries the people 
have the "privilege" of leaving the determination of their 
"rights" in the keeping of a few of their members of for- 
tunate parentage. In still others, what the people may 
do and what they may not do is determined by a goodly 
number, partly of the people's choosing, who may estab- 
lish such relations between men as they see fit, provided, 
that one person of certain ancestral descent does not 
object. Yet again, as in our own country, questions of 
rights and privileges are determined by a few hundred 
men, selected, directly or indirectly, by the people them- 
selves, who have power to make such determination as 
five out of nine other persons appointed to irresponsible 
life-tenures may sanction. 

It is noteworthy that in all these forms of govern- 
ment, final authority in determining the relations of man 
to man, in determining what a people may do and what 
they may not do, is vested in from one to a few persons 
who are in nowise directly responsible to a constituency 



GOVERNMENT 199 

— is absolutely removed from the people themselves. It 
is openly admitted by the chief beneficiaries of these 
organizations that the people as a whole cannot be 
trusted with power to determine what should constitute 
proper relations among themselves ; and it is the function 
of the beneficiaries, always in command of the organized 
powers, to see to it that no such authority is bestowed 
upon the masses. 

The reason for this state of affairs is found solely in 
this, that governmental organizations incorporate certain 
privileges, confer upon a part of the people the right to 
prey upon the rest. These privileges must be safe- 
guarded, and it is but natural that their keeping cannot 
be intrusted to those who constitute the source of prey. 
The reins of authority must be in the hands of the bene- 
ficiaries of any established order — in the keeping of the 
owning, exploiting class. In the founding of our gov- 
ernmental organization, privileges were established, and 
the course of that government must be such as to retain 
them as though an inviolable, unchangeable covenant. To 
do this, centralization of authority is an absolute require- 
ment. 

The various forms of government that men have estab- 
lished have ever been well adapted to the purpose for 
which each was intended, and it is but reasonable to pre- 
sume that they will always be so. For instance, there is 
no more government in the United States than is needed 
for the purpose that it serves, and, if capitalism is to 
remain the order of industry, our organization is admir- 
ably adapted to it. For if at any time it is found wanting 
in adaptation, adjustment is readily attainable by the 
privileged class. It now, without any change in the 
fundamental law, includes some very marked features 



200 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

that were foreign to the intentions of its founders; but 
circumstances have developed necessity for them and 
they are, or apparently soon will be, permanently estab- 
lished. Notable among these are the absolute supremacy 
of our courts, the power conferred upon our military au- 
thorities by what is known as the Dick Bill, the conver- 
sion of our state guards into regular army reserves, the 
ever increasing power of officials as censors of the press, 
the constant tendency to abridgment of free speech and 
even free assembly, and a marked curtailment of the right 
of franchise. Viewed philosophically, there is nothing in 
these encroachments upon the earlier liberties of our peo- 
ple that is illogical or abnormal. The privileges of the 
exploiter must be maintained and, to safeguard them, 
these are all measures of ever increasing necessity. 

The Socialist is in no sense opposed to government. 
He knows that as long as society is organized, there will 
exist necessity for rules of action. That implies law 
making and enforcing. To the question of how much or 
what kind of government, he makes the only answer that 
sanity could dictate — that is a matter that circumstances 
must determine. As before stated, the world has never 
had any more government than was needed to accomplish 
the purposes for which it is used. If the time ever comes 
(and it certainly will) when few or no policemen and no 
soldiers are needed, they surely will not be maintained; 
but while they are a necessary adjunct, they will certainly 
be factors in organization. A co-operative common- 
wealth, having no private interests to serve, would logi- 
cally vest all final authority in the people themselves 
through the initiative and referendum in legislation. It 
would have no use whatever for a senate empowered to 
undo the work of its directly elected representatives. It 



GOVERNMENT 201 

may need courts but not to set aside its legislative enact- 
ments, nor to liberate its most conspicuous criminals. 
Capitalism needs these things and therefore we have 
them. Socialism would substitute an industrial for a 
political congress because that is what conditions would 
call for in the Socialist regime. The acts of such a con- 
gress would be subject to referendum and its members 
to recall. That does not mean that all its acts would be 
referred to the people, but it does mean that the people 
would have the right to order the reference of any act 
and the sole power to confirm or annul it. 

No, Socialists have no thought of abolishing govern- 
ment. What they will abolish is the industrial system 
that calls for the present form of organization. When 
co-operative industry is the established order, whatever 
legislative bodies and whatever officials are needed to 
properly carry it on will certainly be a part of the system. 
Then, as now, the system of industry will determine the 
nature and extent of government. 

Nor can a government adapted to a thoroughly co- 
operative system contain any element of tyranny. It is 
not tyrannous, nor is it anything that savors of slavery to 
demand that every able-bodied person shall render to 
society the social equivalent of the labor products con- 
sumed by him. Tyranny and slavery exist wherever one 
person, in order to produce his own living, is compelled 
also to provide that of another. A people as a whole 
cannot enslave themselves. Master and subordinate, ex- 
ploiter and exploited are essential factors to slavery. So- 
cialism cannot make persons individually equal in any 
sense; but it can endow each with equal opportunity in 
life. Equal opportunity bars absolutely any species of 
slavery. The extent to which one utilizes his opportun- 



#02 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

ity will depend wholly upon himself. It is his and none 
can deprive him of it; but he is responsible for results. 
Of course capitalist apologists claim that all now have 
equal opportunity; and if they would but add that the 
opportunity to which they refer is to be somebody's hired 
man, their claim would verge closely upon the truth. One 
man's son is now born the possessor a billion dollars 
worth of opportunities and your son with the privilege to 
serve him, provided his agents see fit to hire your boy. 
A function of the trusts is to close opportunity in theit 
lines of action. No claim ever made by apologists was 
or is more absurd than that persons are now endowed 
with equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. Such condition is impossible where man and master 
obtain, and never to a higher degree than now. 

The plea that Socialists are endeavoring to destroy 
the government is, therefore, self-evidently -absurd. If 
one but for a moment considers the interdependence of 
industrial and governmental institutions, he can but per- 
ceive that a change in the former necessitates a corre- 
sponding modification in the latter. Socialism will 
eliminate the waste, the needless, the obsolete from both, 
retaining or adding only as conditions require. If Social- 
ists can ever establish such conditions as will not call 
for armies of constables, police, sheriffs, detectives, and 
soldiers, of township, county, state and national officials 
and courts, and a voluminous press to chronicle the daily 
record of crime and the doings of these public function- 
aries in relation thereto, their "destructive" work will 
certainly be a blessed boon to humanity. Socialists will 
establish on a permanent basis what capitalism is so 
surely and rapidly laying waste — a government of, and 
for, and by the people. This will be their substitute for a 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 203 

government under absolute sway of the lobbyists and 
political machines of the exploiters of labor. 



V. 

PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 

It is in nowise the intention here to so much as sug- 
gest a program for final action in the establishment of a 
co-operative commonwealth. The European Socialist 
movement has reached a point that no doubt admits of 
serious consideration of this matter; but the question that 
now most concerns Americans is how to convert more 
people to the revolutionary doctrine, to win adherents to 
the faith. This is the work that for some time must 
absorb our efforts. 

The Socialist party is the political organization 
through which all those who demand the abolition of the 
present system of industry and the substitution therefor 
of a co-operative system express their demands formally 
in platforms and through the exercise of the franchise. 
And since it is evident to the most superficial observer 
that if the privilege to exploit human labor is ever 
wrested from its beneficiaries, that task must be accom- 
plished through united action of the exploited masses, it 
follows that the Socialist party is necessarily the medium 
of political expression of at least the ultimate interests of 
the entire laboring class. That much all will admit who 
are at all agreed upon the matter of necessity for a 
change of system, and who are sufficiently informed to 
express an intelligent opinion concerning that change. 
For certainly it is not rational to assume that any party 



204 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

or political organization that is fostered by any faction 
of the exploiting class could entertain the proposition of 
annihilation of the privileges of that class. And it is like- 
wise certain that no political party or faction can lay any 
claim whatever to being Socialist that does not stand un- 
qualifiedly for this fundamental, ultimate demand — that 
does not stand for the collective ownership of the na- 
tion's sources of subsistence, for the total elimination of 
the exploiter as an industrial factor, for this complete 
change, this revolution in industrial methods. Any polit- 
ical organization, no matter what its designation or pre- 
tenses, either stands squarely and unequivocally for this, 
or it does not stand for it — is either Socialist or capital- 
ist. There is no middle ground ; the demarkation is abso- 
lute. As has already been shown, the advocates of the 
public ownership of one or a few things have no more 
thought of incorporating this fundamental proposition in 
their schemes for "reform" than have the other capitalist 
bodies. If this were a part of their program, they would 
at once discern that their side-shows are superfluous and 
join with the Socialists. 

It is this all-essential and ultimate demand that abso- 
lutely divorces the Socialist party from all other political 
organizations. The demand is revolutionary. This 
designation must not be misinterpreted. The popular 
conception of this term "revolution" that identifies it with 
violence and public uprisings is erroneous. The word is 
used by Socialists with perfect propriety to denote an 
entire change in industrial methods and in contradistinc- 
tion to the word "reform" that significes simply some 
modification of the existing order. All Socialists demand 
an industrial revolution, but violence is no part of their 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 205 

program. If violence accompanies this change of system, 
capitalists must be responsible for it. 

It is this revolutionary demand that makes fusion or 
coalition of Socialists with any other party or faction im- 
possible. A mere reform movement is easily merged into 
or captured by an older and stronger organization. A 
minority party whose membership's interests are not 
seriously menaced by the demands of the reformers has 
but to incorporate in its platform sufficient of those de- 
mands to strangle the reformers' efforts; and this is the 
universal policy pursued. The absorption and con- 
sequent annihilation of the "greenback" and later of the 
"populist" organizations by the democrats is a monu- 
mental example of the fate of middle-class or reform 
movements. There was nothing in either that was fund- 
amentally prohibitive of democratic encroachment, and 
the democrats needed votes. But the revolutionary de- 
mand of the Socialists bars all advances or seductive 
allurements that can emanate from capitalistic sources. 
It establishes a boundary that nothing of capitalist origin 
can cross. They may absorb all else in the Socialist 
platform and they have at most but captured a skirmish 
line. The main force and reserves are still unscathed. 

But the establishment of a co-operative commonwealth, 
the consummation of the revolutionary processes now in 
full swing in industry, is an end toward which all else 
verges. This implies the use of means to that end. And 
it is over the question as to what constitutes proper, log- 
ical, consistent and efficient modes of procedure in propa- 
ganda and in political action — what constitutes the best 
means to the end sought — that socialists are often di- 
vided. Regarding the one great end and aim, they are 
a unit; as to the best means of accomplishing that end, 



20G INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

very naturally, they have not been a unit. There aie 
numerous and various lines of action that are more or less 
plausible and of possible results, so that whenever and 
wherever a point is raised that is purely tactical, varying 
shades of opinion are generally forthcoming. In some of 
the European countries and even in the United States, so 
pronounced has been the contention over this question of 
tactics that it has at times divided the Socialist forces to 
such a degree as to place two or more sets of candidates 
before the electors in many parts of the nation. The 
constant tendency, however, is to a definite policy. In 
this country and on the continent of Europe, serious dif- 
ferences have practically been submerged — a natural con- 
sequence of investigation and experiment. 

This much is definitely decided, that the Socialist 
party shall everywhere and at all times stand unequiv- 
ocally for the interests of the proletariat, the producing 
class, both in their ultimate aim and in their immediate 
needs. It is to this class that it must make its appeal. 
It is from the ranks of labor that it must, in by far the 
largest measure, recruit; it is exploited humanity that 
must ultimately carry the party to victory and thus 
insure their own emancipation. It is essentially the party 
of the laboring class; it could not be otherwise and exist 
at all. Therefore, it at all times looks to labor's interests. 
All immediate demands (and they are numerous) have 
but one aim — for something that will redound to the 
betterment of labor's condition. This thought permeates 
every paragraph of every platform, national, state or 
local. Better educational facilities, free text-books and 
even provision for meals for the needy pupils; better 
wages for laborers on all forms of public work or im- 
provement; the maintenance at public expense of free 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 207 

employment agencies ; the rights of the poor to counsel in 
the courts; the rights of labor to organize, defend their 
standard of subsistence and secure, if possible, a larger share 
of their labor-product ; pensions for the needy aged : publicly 
owned and comparatively free bath houses, gymnasiums, 
theaters and such other institutions as should be within 
easy reach of all; public ownership and operation of all 
municipal franchises; the vesting of power in the hands 
of the people through the initiative and referendum in 
legislation and the right of recall of public officials; aid 
for laborers while in conflict with their capitalist masters ; 
defense of the proletariat in their contests for what has 
long been conceded as their constitutional rights to free 
speech, free assembly and an uncorrupted, unabridged 
franchise — in all of these matters or in any others where- 
in labor has a direct or even an indirect interest, it 
finds an unfailing advocate in the Socialist. In the coun- 
tries and municipalities wherein the Socialists have 
gained a power with which capitalists have to reckon, 
or complete ascendency, they have already put many 
of these measures into operation. And ever and 
always the Socialist is urging, pleading with labor to 
use its franchise to place its own representatives in 
positions of authority — pleading for independent political 
action. 

Thus it is that the Socialist platform is logically ar- 
ranged in two parts — one dealing with the general and 
universal mission of the party, the other with its imme- 
diate demands. These demands necessarily vary ma- 
terially in different countries and even in different parts 
of the same country. This circumstance and the relative 
prominence given these demands by the adverse critics 
of Socialism gives rise to the misconception that there 



208 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

are different kinds of Socialism in different localities — an 
error due to deliberate misrepresentation and false state- 
ment or to the mistaking of the means for accomplishing 
a purpose for the purpose itself. 

The Socialist party organization consists of, first, a na- 
tional executive committee of seven members and a national 
secretary, all elected by the entire party membership of the 
nation; second, a national committee now consisting of 
from one to three members in each organized state or terri- 
tory, the apportionment being according to the numerical 
strength of the party in the various political divisions, all 
elected by the membership of their respective states; third, 
of local organizations everywhere, designated as "Locals ;" 
and members "at large" who have not opportunity to join a 
Local, but affiliate with the party through a state secretary or 
the national office. The various state organizations are mod- 
eled closely after that of the nation. Members of Locals 
or "at large" are designated as "members of the party" and 
each pays a small monthly assessment called "dues," five 
cents of which goes to the national office, from five to ten 
cents to the state organization and the remainder to his 
Local. These dues furnish the funds that run the entire ma- 
chinery of the party, except when some special emergency 
makes necessary a special assessment or a call for voluntary 
contributions. Itemized statements of all receipts and ex- 
penditures of whatever nature are monthly published by the 
national and by the various state offices and sent to every 
Local in the nation or state, respectively. Constitutions, 
platforms and resolutions, and all official declarations of the 
party are referred to the entire membership for their ap- 
proval or rejection and their decision is final ; and any act of 
any official or any body of officials must, on demand, be re- 
ferred to the entire constituency affected by such act for 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 209 

their concurrence or disapproval. Under direct supervision 
of the national office are two bureaus — one supervising a 
corps of national lecturers and organizers, the other collect- 
ing and distributing literature and propaganda material. 

These are the main features of the organization. Simple 
as it is, it is thorough and something entirely novel in 
American politics. It is a political machine of which any 
one, regardless of sex, color or creed, may become a member 
by declaring allegiance to the principles of the party and 
entire renunciation of adherence to any other political or- 
ganization. Should a member $o far wander from grace as 
to desire to act with or hold an official position under any 
other party whatsoever, he must withdraw from his Local. 
Nothing that savors of fusion or compromise is tolerated on 
the part of any body of Socialists or even of one member. 
History and experience have taught the Socialists that this 
is the only course that they can pursue and retain their in- 
tegrity. To be sure this is confusing, astonishing to the po- 
litical "pie-hunters" of capitalism, but there is far too much 
in the Socialist cause to be wasted on such as they. 

Yes, it is a political machine, and yet so organized and 
conducted that rings, or cliques, or bosses are impossible of 
successful formation, or operation, or installation. It is a 
political machine that can carry on no star chamber proceed- 
ings, whose every act must conform to the will of the ma- 
jority and whose entire doings are necessarily as open to in- 
spection as is a public document. It holds more meetings 
than any other organization in the nation and not a meeting 
is ever secret — never one behind barred doors. Its forum 
is always open to him who wishes to mount it, and the in- 
quisitive or seeker after information is always a welcome 
guest. 

As might be expected, the organized membership of the 



210 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

party is far short of its voting strength. This is its deepest 
source of regret. If those who have advanced so far as to 
line up with the party on election day could but realize how 
much it means to them to acquire the knowledge and train- 
ing gained from the work of a Local, how little it means to 
each financially and yet how much their numerous mites 
mean to the organization as a whole, the membership 
would at once increase many fold. It would seem that any 
person acting in any manner or capacity with a movement 
of such momentous import would be ambitious to learn of 
its doings, its methods of work, the lessons it has to impart, 
and to share in its comradeship. The only way to do this as 
it should be done is to join a Local and attend its meetings. 
If one does this and constantly reads a couple of the party's 
best papers, he will soon begin to comprehend something of 
what this mighty movement really means. 

The mission of the Socialist party in America has been, 
and, in the absence of some still unforeseen circumstance that 
might thrust it prominently into power, will for some time 
continue to be, chiefly to carry on propaganda work, to 
spread the lessons gleaned from industry and history among 
the people. Its membership well understand that the human 
race is rapidly moving toward the abolition of the present 
system of industry — to the culmination of a revolution in 
industrial methods. And it is well here to note that the re- 
placement of the present system by one of co-operation will 
be nothing but the culmination of a revolution ; because the 
revolution that receives so much emphasis in the teachings 
of Socialists has already been wrought by forces over which 
they have no control. These forces that make the change 
imperative are found in industrial and governmental organi- 
zations. The revolution is being worked out, in fact has 
already been wrought through the medium of machinery by 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 211 

the economic and political dominance of the captains of in- 
dustry. They have demonstrated the inadequacy of the pres- 
ent system and made necessary the change that must follow 
— they have accomplished the revolution. What remains 
is to get the people ready for the transfer of system ; to teach 
the people, first, the real significance of what is now tak- 
ing place under their immediate observation, and, second, 
the proper mode of procedure in consummating the change. 
To the first part of this two-fold task the Socialist party is 
now chiefly directing its effort. It will take up the second 
part formally whenever and wherever conditions require. 
It will not, or at least it is not necessary that it should, waste 
energy on the matter of preparation to cross a stream until 
nearness of approach calls for preparatory steps. 

As previously stated, the means for consummating this 
revolution are incorporated in our constitution and law — in 
what is now our bill of rights. Fundamental among these 
rights is that to cast a vote and have it counted as cast — 
that is, the right of the majority to determine the entire 
course of government. Whether this right has ever been 
fully appreciated and exercised or not — whether elections 
here and there have been stolen and the voice of the people 
thwarted — is not here a matter for consideration. It is laid 
down as fundamental to our system of government and as 
such it is going to be strictly adhered to to the end. Our 
people are learning to use the ballot and, when circumstances 
compel them to act, they will see to it that the majority shall 
govern. But, in any event, whether this right is preserved 
in its purity or not — whether or not the capitalist class will 
submit to the results of lawful, constitutional procedure on 
the part of the exploited masses — the Socialist recognizes as 
a primal necessity the proper mental equipment of at least 
a well rounded majority of our people. This is a matter 



212 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

that can be ascertained even if labor is disfranchised. And 
this mental equipment does not mean that each one of that 
majority must possess an intimate knowledge of the phi- 
losophy of Socialism ; but that they at least shall be brought 
to understand the course of industrial evolution, be made to 
realize the exploitation that is now practiced upon them and 
the proper course of conduct to secure what, in justice, be- 
longs to them. When they have acquired that knowledge, 
they will know far more of economics, far more of their 
function as citizens of a republic, far more of capitalism, and 
of Socialism than has ever been within the comprehension of 
any majority responsible for the continuance of the present 
system of industry and the governmental institutions neces- 
sary to its propagation. In short, it will be the most intel- 
ligent majority that has ever had anything to say about the 
affairs of this nation. 

It is through this majority that the Socialist hopes to 
capture the powers of government, to wrest that power from 
the hand of the exploiter and vest producing humanity with 
supreme control. He knows that he will gain that majority 
only as the masses are enlightened; therefore, he is always 
and everywhere a propagandist. It is not to produce a revo- 
lution that he works ; he leaves that to capitalism. But he 
does seek to direct it into proper channels. He knows that 
the privilege of the exploiter must go and to the teaching of 
what that means he bends every effort. His cry is: "Or- 
ganize. Lead the millions into right lines of action. Bring 
men and women together in counsel; teach the lessons of 
evolution, economics and the class struggle. Train voters 
for an intelligent use of the ballot ; develop the solidarity of 
the laboring class/' 

Nor is their membership by any means confined to wage 
workers. Every profession, station and calling in life is 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 213 

well represented in their Locals.* Business and professional 
men constitute a marked percentage of their most active and 
influential workers. Several men of wealth, reputed million- 
aires, in defiance of the ostracism of their class, have joined 
them ; and others are working to the same purpose through 
such organizations as the Christian Socialists, Collectivist 
Leagues, etc. Nor is this at all surprising. The riches of 
men cannot in all cases blind them in their interpretation of 
contemporaneous history. There is no fatal reason why a 
rich man should not discern the course of the revolution that 
is working itself out as the consequence of the system that 
made possible his possessions. Doubtless thousands have al- 
ready been brought to this state of mind who lack the moral 
courage to openly state their convictions. They may possess 
a few thousands, a few hundreds of thousands, or even a few 
milions only to feel their relative insignificance in the great 
gambling game of capitalism, with its marked cards and 
loaded dice. Or they may discern that, at its best, the game 
is not worth the playing ; that what the nation need's is men, 
not millionaires. These smaller fish of the financial sea are 
tempting bait for the great scavengers ; and, as the industries 
concentrate, as the gigantic octopi throw out their mighty 
tentacles, the hopelessness of successful combat with such 
power is too apparent to all to escape the vigilant eye of the 
smaller holder of wealth. The insecurity of himself and his 



* The National Office reports the following interesting statistics 
regarding the membership of the Socialist Party in the United 
States : 

Nationalities Represented — Native born Americans constitute 
71%; Germans, 8%%; English, 4%; Scandinavians, 5%; all others, 
11%%. 

Occupation of membership— Laborers and Craftsmen, 61% ; far- 
mers, 17% ; commerce, 9% ; professional men, 5% ; all others, 8%. 

Politics Before Joining the Socialists — Democrats, 40% ; Re- 
publicans, 35%; Populists, 15%; all others, 10%. 



214 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

children cannot but assert itself. Again, riches cannot in 
all cases steel the heart of man against the cruel inhumanities 
of the present order nor eclipse the vision of its inevitable 
overthrow. Of course, as a class, the rich will not join in 
the abrogation of their own privilege, but that the Socialists 
will, ere long, number many of them in their ranks, seems a 
certainty. Even economic determinism makes strange bed- 
fellows. 

As for the small business man, there is little left in 
capitalism to hold him in its grasp. The multiplying millions 
that must annually go into business in some form — the divi- 
dends of the great concerns for which investments must be 
found — are bound to make and are making inroads into his 
opportunity to garner a part of the exploited product of la- 
bor. The tremendous increases in the business of the mail 
order houses, the growing disposition to eliminate the job- 
ber and the retailer as well, is already beginning to be felt 
and can but multiply as the years go by. The cream of busi- 
ness is being gathered by these big concerns ; the dregs are 
all that will be left to the local trade. This does not imply 
that the small traders will markedly decrease in number, 
either actually or relatively, but does mean that their returns 
will fall as business drifts to the great centers. They will 
however cling as long as it is possible to obtain subsistence, 
for even that is preferable to a labor market that they are 
not qualified to invade and that at best offers no opportunity 
for betterment of their condition. The recruiting of the So- 
cialist ranks from this source is in no sense irregular. 

And thus the Socialist ranks are swelling every hour ; nor 
can it be otherwise. Everywhere one hears the admission 
that "something must be done to stay the ravenous hand of 
greed and provide means for the subsistence of the people. " 
But "what must be done ?" is a question that meets no more 



PROGRAM, ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS 215 

intelligent reply from capitalist sources than "have con- 
fidence/' "God knows," or a request to elect some politicians 
to office. The Socialist is the only one who meets the ques- 
tion squarely and tells the interrogator that when the people 
learn to produce things for themselves and not for ex- 
ploiters the "'something" will be done. The nation must own 
its sources of subsistence; the privilege of the exploiter 
must go. 

To the thousand and one petty questions as to "how do 
you propose to do this, that and the other," the Socialist can 
reply truthfully and comprehesively that he proposes to es- 
tablish a government of the people who will decide these 
matters as Socialists now decide all questions that arise in 
their own organization, "as the majority determines." If 
the majority errs, let it correct its error. It will not long 
deliberately do injury to itself, nor can it, in a condition of 
equal opportunity, inflict more wrong upon a minority than 
the majority must suffer. When the masses are enlight- 
ened, when they are purged of the capitalistic superstitions 
and fetich worship in which they are now shrouded, when 
the burdens of such governmental matters as must be main- 
tained are thrust directly upon them, self-inflicted injury 
will be of short duration. 

Socialists do not know every matter of detail of a co- 
operative commonwealth, nor is it necessary at this stage of 
its development that they should ; but they know more about 
it than did our Revolutionary sires of the sort of govern- 
mental organization that they were to establish up to the very 
hour of its formation. Whenever it becomes necessary to 
take a step in the establishment of one or more institutions, 
the step will be taken ; if in a wrong direction, it can easily 
be retraced and a true course established. We have faith in 



216 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

humanity when it is once liberated — and we have faith in 
its ability and determination to accomplish its liberty. 



VI. 

CRITICS 

In nothing is the weakness of the defense of capitalism 
more vividly portrayed than in the diatribes of the adverse 
critics of Socialism. A common characteristic of the essays 
of these critics is to set up a "straw man," label it "Social- 
ism" and then proceed to demolish it. All the diabolisms of 
the present system are the regular attributes of this appa- 
rition ; and if these are not sufficient for the purpose in hand, 
then all the personal weaknesses or shortcomings, real or 
apparent, of an individual or two who somewhere or some- 
time advocated Socialism, communism or anarchism, are 
conjured up as the regular and orthodox teachings and prac- 
tices of all who oppose the established order. National 
platforms and official declarations that have received the 
formal sanction of the entire party and the standard and up 
to date authorities everywhere are passed by as matters of 
no moment ; somebody, somewhere, some time said so and so 
or did so and so, and that settles the whole matter beyond 
dispute for the entire race of Socialists and for the system 
of industry and popular government that they propose to 
establish. When advocates are driven to such straits, it is 
ample evidence that facts and logic fail them. Their only 
available substitutes are misrepresentation and abuse. 

For instance, Socialists are charged with desiring to 
take the property of the nation and divide it up among the 
people. The author would apologize for any reference to 



CRITICS 217 

this absurdity did not even so prominent a personage as our 
president, the Hon. William H. Taft, make the charge, The 
self-evident impossibility of such a thing is sufficient to re- 
fute it. How could they divide up the railroads, mines, fac- 
tories, etc.? Socialists demand their collective ownership — 
the diametrical opposite of any sort of partition of the con- 
cerns. If collective ownership has any such meaning as Mr. 
Taft attributes to the desire of the Socialists, he should, 
to be consistent, at once demand his share of our post offices 
and school buildings. Possibly he is a philanthropist. 

Let us look a moment at the facts. The entire real and 
personal property of this nation is valued at about one hun- 
dred billions of dollars. The annual product of the nation's 
labor is rated at nearly forty billions.* It is the privilege of 
dividing up this forty billions that constitutes capitalism. 
Capitalism divides it as we have seen. The exploiters fatten 
upon the division — but the producers don't. It is this di- 
vision that Socialism will stop ; and that is wherein it speaks 
death to capitalism. Socialists will divide that product 
among the producers of it and on the basis of justice ; there- 
fore, there will be nothing for an exploiter. The privilege 
of the exploiters that we would abolish is their power to 
compel producing humanity to submit to this annual division 
in order to live. When one contemplates the magnitude of 
that annual labor-product that capitalists so largely divide 
among themselves, it makes their hundred billions of taxable 
property look rather insignificant. It is through the private 
ownership of a large part of the hundred billions that capi- 
talists hold control of the annually repeated forty billions, 



* The statistician, Lucien Sanial, in what he issues as a con- 
servative estimate of the nation's annual labor product, places it, 
for 1907, at thirty-six billions of dollars, 



218 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

and without the privilege of carving the latter the ownership 
of the former would be worthless. 

Not long since a certain eastern Professor went over a 
large part of this country "demonstrating" that labor does 
not produce all wealth and incidentally "demolishing" So- 
cialism. In a suit for the annullment of his marriage, it 
developed that for some time Standard Oil had been paying 
him $15,000 per year for his expert knowledge of political 
economy. That fee would qualify a man of elastic con- 
science for the "demonstration" or "demolition" of almost 
any sort of ism. Since then some light has been thrown 
upon the methods of "labor" by which the oil magnates of 
26 Broadway "produce" their wealth, but Standard did not 
pay for the revelations. 

Another charge laid against Socialism is that it will de- 
stroy the home. This charge is indefinite as it may relate 
to the material home — the possession of a habitation — or to 
the relations between man, woman and child that should 
characterize a home. 

If the charge has any reference to the destruction of home 
possession, there is little ground for fear of anything that 
Socialists may do, as capitalism has well nigh completed 
that work. It will soon leave little to destroy. The "Ab- 
stract of Twelfth Census" (pages 133-135) tells us that of 
all the "homes" in New York city (Manhattan) 94 per cent 
are rented; of Boston 81.1 per cent, of Chicago 75 per cent, 
of Philadelphia, "the city of homes/' 78 per cent, and so on 
throughout the nation. Leaving the cities, the same au- 
thority informs us that already 52 per cent of the farmers 
of the country do not own the farms they work. Robert 
Hunter, an authority on such matters, asserts: "Probably 
no wage-earners in Manhattan own their homes, and in sev- 
eral other large cities probably 99 per cent of the wage- 



CRITICS 219 

earners are propertyless and involved in a 

weekly indebtedness for rent of from one-fifth to two-fifths 
of their earnings, regardless of whether they have work or 
not." When the actual condition of the homes of this nation 
is thus laid before us, the scene is so marked by tragedy that 
one has not even a smile for those who play thfe lndicrous 
role of critic. When the exploiters are off the industrial 
field, when labor gets its own, there will be some opportunity 
for home ownership in America ; but certainly not till then. 

The second phase of this charge against Socialism — that 
it will destroy the relations necessary to the maintenance of 
families and homes — forces the apologists for capitalism into 
strange contentions. The Socialists demand the absolute 
right of a producer to the product of his labor — that a la- 
borer shall be permitted to produce as much as he pleases 
and have its social equivalent as his reward. This means 
the economic independence of men and women — liberation 
from wage slavery. The critics argue that this condition 
would destroy proper human relations ; would cause men and 
women to cease to wed because they loved each other — in 
other words, qualification to possess and fit up homes would 
disqualify people to properly occupy them. No other mean- 
ing can attach to this contention than that to maintain a 
proper standard of morality, to keep men and women in 
"their proper spheres," it is necessary to keep them in econo- 
mic dependence, in a condition of servitude. For evident it 
is that Socialism makes no demand on behalf of man or wo- 
man except that an industrial system shall be established 
that shall insure economic freedom. If we are to believe 
these critics, subordination, dependency, servitude — un- 
qualified species of slavery — constitute a condition essential 
to chastity. The condition thus constituted certainly is es- 
sential to capitalist dividends, to the continuance of the sys- 



220 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

tern of exploitation ; but wherein it is necessary to the devel- 
opment of a well rounded manhood or womanhood has not as 
yet been made apparent. 

The home-destroying charge is put in the form of a de- 
claration that Socialists seek to establish a system of "free 
love." What is meant is "free lust," such as is now so 
extensively practiced among the people who have little to do 
but squander the millions that others produce. As no body 
of Socialists ever expressed a desire for such a system of 
conjugal relations, evidence that they entertain any such 
ideas must be sought entirely outside all their official de- 
clarations. Then one must look to the conduct of the So- 
cialists themselves. There are hundreds of thousands of 
them in this country and millions of them in other lands. 
They are your neighbors and friends everywhere. They 
are prominent in all the walks of life. Is there any other 
class of people among whom there is so small a per cent of 
criminals or insane or drunkards or suicides or unfaithful 
husbands or wives — among whom there is anything to war- 
rant so infamous a charge as even an ex-president labors to 
lay against them? You probably know some or may have 
heard of some who have varied from the path of rectitude. 
Well, average them up with the members of other parties 
and you will find the balance decidedly in their favor. But 
it is a function of the capitalist apologist to magnify out of 
all proportion every shortcoming on the part of a Socialist 
and to attribute his every failing to his politics. They seem 
wholly to overlook the fact that the Socialists of today must 
be made out of democrats and republicans — the only source 
of raw material. From the tenor of their discourses one 
would conclude that they expect Socialists to take these pro- 
ducts of capitalist environment and transmute them into 
models for paradise. Our ambition is to teach them the 



CRITICS 221 

truth in all things as nearly as it can be ascertained and 
wholly uncorrupted by any capitalistic taint or trimmings. 
This can have but one effect — to broaden their field of 
thought and action and make them better men and women. 
In this the Socialists have been remarkably successful. 

When one contemplates the horrors of the capitalistic 
slums with their millions of humanity, wherein thousands of 
families occupy but one room to the family; the qualifica- 
tions! for home life imparted in sweatshop, factory and 
mine; the hundreds of thousands in the "red-light" dis- 
tricts whose condition is as directly traceable to capitalism 
as malaria is to jswamps ; the millions of men who by labor 
conditions are disqualified to possess a home or support a 
family and the corresponding number of women who con- 
sequently cannot possibly wed; the debaucheries and illicit 
relations that figure so conspicuously in "high life" ; the mar- 
riages based solely upon expediency, diplomacy, and bargain 
,and sale that are almost as numerous as the rich, the gentry, 
the nobility and the "blood royal" — when one looks upon 
capitalism as it really is and beholds the home drifting out 
of human life at a rate never before witnessed in the worlds 
history, the charge that this institution is endangered by 
those who would establish a system of justice, who would 
terminate the legalized robberies of organized vultures and 
liberate the slaves of industry, is too self-apparently absurd 
to find advocates anywhere except around the altar of 
Mammon. 

Again, it is charged against Socialists that they are 
trying to destroy religion. To the student of history this 
charge has a very familiar ring. The same charge sent 
Socrates to his death. Under the same indictment the early 
Christians met every form of torture from the cross to the 
arena. It was this identical "argument" that was urged 



222 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

against those who first offered proof of the earth's rotation 
and of its annual circuit of the sun. Many goodly inten- 
tioned and many badly and all foolishly intentioned people 
could see nothng but a direct attack upon everything sacred 
in such theories as that of gravitation, of the conservation of 
energy, of evolution in plant and animal life, and the lessons 
of the rocks as read by the geologists. The abominable 
teachings of those who advocated the abolition of chattel 
slavery were often characterized as sacrilege of deepest 
hue. Even the relation of railways and the telegraph to the 
souls of men was in some instances formally announced as 
inimical.* 

During the propagation of each of these great truths, 
there were attacks upon the teaching of some creeds; but 
those attacks were made by the early advocates of the revo- 
lutionary theory as a matter of self-defense against the on- 
slaughts of the adherents of the creed. In each case the 
scientific thinkers felt that they were advancing a great 
truth and they were forced to defend that truth against all 
adversaries. They knew that all truths are harmoniously 
related; apparent discrepancies call for investigation and, 
finally, for re-adjustment of theories. Most of the creeds 
have now adapted their teachings to all of these great dis- 
coveries and admit the folly of their former contentions. 

The Socialist party is a political organization and as 



*The school board at Lancaster, Ohio, in 1828, refused to per- 
mit the school house to be used for the discussion of the question 
as to whether railroads were practical or not, and the matter was 
recently called to mind by an old document that reads as follows : 
"You are welcome to use the school house to debate all proper 
questions in, but such things as railroads and telegraphs are impossi- 
bilities and rank infidelity. There is nothing in the Word of God 
about them. If God had designed that his intelligent creatures 
should travel at the frightful speed of fifteen miles an hour, by 
steam, he would have clearly foretold through his holy prophets. 
It is a device of Satan to lead immortal souls down to hell." 



critics 223 

such enrolls among its members representatives of every 
shade of religious belief. In qualifying for membership, 
no thought of religious test is anywhere contemplated. No 
Local would be so presumptuous as to attempt to impose 
such a condition. On matters political, a member must hew 
to the line; on matters religious, he follows his own inclin- 
ations. There may be some, but the author personally 
knows of none who have changed their religious beliefs 
after joining the Socialist party. 

On the question of what will be the effect upon religious 
institutions of establishing a co-operative commonwealth, 
one may philosophize, but he cannot afifirm. If their reten- 
tion is contingent upon some form of industrial servitude, 
on the relation of man and master, they certainly must go, 
If they cannot survive in a land of industrially free beings, 
they are not worthy of preservation. Is the church ready 
to admit that its life-current courses through the veins 
of capitalism? It certainly is not a unit in such admission. 
The Chrstian Socialist Fellowship, that numbers in its 
ranks hundreds of ministers and members of all creeds, 
among them leaders of religious thought and activity, de- 
clares in Article 2 of its Constitution: "Its object shall be 
to permeate churches, denominations and other religious 
institutions with the social message of Jesus; to show that 
Socialism is the economic expression of the Christian life; 
to end the clas,s struggle and establish industrial democracy 
and to hasten the reign of justice and brotherhood upon 
earth.'' Ex-President Roosevelt is among those who as- 
sume the role of spiritual adviser for these hundreds of 
splendid, manly men and warns them as per the following 
insult to decency : "As for the so-called Christian Socialists 
who associate themselves with the movement, they either are 
or ought to be aware of the pornographic (of or pertaining 



224 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

to the obscene) literature, the pornographic propaganda, 
which make up one side of the movement."* The brazen 
effrontery of the man in assuming that these men of the 
cloth do not know enough to know that their own lives 
and teachings, as well as those of their hundreds of 
thousands of comrades, stamp this accusation as false and 
hypocritical, is equalled only by his further assumption of 
ignorance on the part of his readers as to the most common 
consequences of the environment in which he has spent a 
greater part of his life. For whether the words were writ- 
ten in Washington or in New York, within a mile radius of 
where they were penned and among his political tribes and 
clansmen, there is more that is pornial (licentious) transpir- 
ing every day than among all the millions of Socialists of 
the world in a decade. And capitalism is written over it 
all — the capitalism that Mr. Roosevelt is defending. 

If civilization is to be perpetuated, the present sysytem 
of industry must give way to one of physical and mental 
liberty. We say physical and mental liberty, because they 
are inseparable ; the one cannot exist without the other. 
Truth, or at least the nearest approach to it that human 
beings can attain, is the only thing that can endure the 
tests of experience and experiment. All there is that is 
wholesome, all that is true, all that contributes to the up- 
building of a pure, free manhood and womanhood will sur- 
vive in the coming order ; and that is surely all that should 
survive. 

Another foolish charge that is brought against Social- 
ism is that it has always failed wherever it has been tried. 



*Prof. Albion W. Small, of Chicago University, says of this 
tirade: "I am not a Socialist myself, but I think it is a mistake for 
those who are not Socialists to misrepresent the Socialistic doc- 
trines, because it gives those of that faith the idea that their oppo- 
nents are not sincere." 



critics 225 

The answer to this criticism is found in the fact that it 
has never been tried. Men like Plato, Sir Thomas More, 
Robert Owen and even Edward Bellamy dreamed of a 
communistic state in which all products of labor were a 
common possession and each privileged to help himself as 
he might -see fit. Even Christ, the apostles and the early 
church fathers held economic ideas that were decidedly 
communistic. Robert Owen and some others endeavored to 
establish and maintain colonies based on this ideal state. 
They vainly hoped that these little groups planted in the 
midst of capitalist countries and with all the guns of 
plutocracy trained upon them might flourish, spread and 
finally absorb a nation and the world. With them, com- 
munism was to come, very largely if not entirely, as a 
result of men's desires to establish an ideal state of human- 
ity — a thought incompatible with Socialist philosophy. 

Socialism is not a consequence of philosophic dreams 
any more than is a certain type of plant or animal. It is a 
product of evolution in economic institutions. It is a child 
of necessity, not of speculative philosophy. It must come 
as a means of adaptation of industrial methods to industrial 
environment. It is that toward which the whole process of 
supplying the needs of the human race is irresistibly drifting. 
It is not a human invention; it is a historical discovery. 
It is not an ideal to be worked out in some isolated or 
non-isolated colony; it is a system of industry as world 
wide as capitalism itself. It is not communism any more 
than it is capitalism or anarchy. Socialism may evolve into 
communism, but that is wholly a matter for the people 
of a Socialist world to determine. It is no concern of ours. 
Evolutionary processes move by steps and, despite the theory 
of the sudden changes in life-forms, as advanced by the 



226 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

"mutationists," we are not justified in expecting these pro- 
cesses to jump fences. 

"Then," says another critic, "Socialists are not consistent. 
Your co-operative commonwealth must come a step at a 
time. We must gain municipal ownership of water, gas, 
lighting, street railways, etc.; then government ownership 
of railways, telegraphs and telephones, then steel plants, and 
so on to the end. You cannot get it all at once." Looked 
at superficially, this criticism seems logical. And more, it is 
logical, for the co-operative commonwealth has for years 
past been ripening to fullness just that way and will so con- 
tinue to ripen. With the people of the United States, it has 
already passed through most of these preliminary steps. 
There are few if any Socialists in America who have not 
evolved through all the various phases of municipal and gov- 
ernmental ownership — "step by step." Each reasoned him- 
self through these phases "one at a time," and many indeed 
of them even through the colony phase. Three-fourths of 
the people of our great cities have, no doubt, long since 
been convinced of the necessity for municipal ownership of 
various franchises — five-sixths of Chicago have already 
voted for ownership of her street railways. But five-sixths 
of Chicago are not Socialists by any means. They have 
simply evolved through some of the preliminary steps neces- 
sary to arrive at Socialism. The fact that they did not 
accomplish their desired object, that they were bounced out 
of their right to govern that city — to run its industrial 
affairs or what should be their own affairs — by the political 
henchmen and courts of capitalism, does not in the least 
lessen the degree or extent to which they have evolved 
along the lines that lead to a co-operative commonwealth. 
In fact their defeat through the machinations of those who 
operate the capitalistic governmental machinery but adds 



CRITICS 22? 

impetus to their progress. A large majority of the people 
of this nation have already, "step by step," evolved through 
the government-ownership-of-railways stages and are now 
preparing for the next advance. 

It is certainly evident that the evolutionary process does 
not require the actual accomplishment of "each step" before 
another can be taken. When a person has reached the 
"municipal ownership" stage of development, it is but a 
brief step to the national phase and so on. The last "step" 
is taken when one perceives that our economic problems 
have their common bases in the privilege of labor exploita- 
tion — in the private ownership of the nation's sources of 
subsistence. He then perceives the revolutionary outcome 
of the evolutionary processes through which he has gradu- 
ally been passing, and that the world movement now on has 
for its purpose, not the acquisition of an industry here 
and there to be operated through the medium of the poli- 
ticians and bosses and grafters of capitalist organizations, 
but the liberation of the race from the bondage of the ex- 
ploiter. When he has absorbed that fact, there is no thought 
more repulsive to him than that of attempting to organize 
a national party, work it into a majority against the powers 
of concentrated wealth, secure control of our national House, 
hold that through the long and tedious process of gaining 
supremacy in the Senate, elect and inaugurate a president, 
wait an age in order to change the complexion of the Su- 
preme Court, all to gain one point, to partially develop one 
phase in an evolutionary process and that a phase through 
which he and the nation evolved long ago. He perceives 
that to actually accomplish, for instance, government owner- 
ship of railroads, every force that capitalism can muster — 
the precinct and ward heelers, the city machine, the county 
machine, the state and national machine?, the capitalist 



228 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 

owned and subsidized press, the purchasable power of 
oratory, the intimidating influences of the great employers 
of labor, the corrupting force of multiplied millions in 
campaign funds — this all-pervading and tremendous enginry 
of capitalism must be beaten, vanquished in detail and in 
totality. As that is just what must be done and all that 
must be done in order to consummate the revolution, why 
waste so much energy and effort on a mere trifle? 

There is nothing abnormal in the evolutionary processes 
that are working out the social and industrial revolution. 
Step by step the impending change is being wrought out to 
fullness. The successive strides lengthen in geometrical 
ratio and they are all toward a common goal. The adverse 
critics cry "halt," but the cry is unheeded. Nor can it 
escape notice that none of them seem disposed to offer a 
defense of capitalism. Not one has the temerity to tell us 
that he defends the present system because it is right, 
that he pleads its cause because it is just, that such slavery 
as the wage system imposes — "the most refined system of 
slavery known to human history" — is the condition that the 
masses should inherit, not one dares present the capitalist 
system as it is and defend it on its merits. No such task is 
essayed. The straw man, mud slinging, and the caricature 
that must be labeled for identification better serves their 
purpose. The real question at issue, the great thought that 
is moving the world, the evolutionary processes that are 
undermining the system that the critic seeks to perpetuate 
as obviously as anything in nature or in human affairs could 
be obvious, are all unheeded. And advisedly so. These are 
not congenial topics to discuss from the standpoint of the 
privileged, even if the critic were sufficiently informed 
to intelligently discuss them. His hope of success lies in his 
play of misrepresentation and vilification (either intentional 



critics 229 

or ignorant) upon the minds of the uninformed and preju- 
diced. He is emboldened in his attack by the consciousness 
that the applause of the "powers that be" awaits his effort, 
that their myriad channels of "information" are open to 
him and closed to his adversary — and he accordingly does 
his worst. 

But despite all defamation and scurrilous onslaught, de- 
spite contemptuous sneer or conspiracy of silence or sup- 
pression, despite all inroads that can be devised upon the 
rights of free speech, free press, free assembly and the 
franchise, the revolution moves constantly forward in its 
inevitable course. Capitalism's frantic efforts to stay it 
are foredoomed to failure for the reason that its impelling 
forces are the constituent elements of capitalism itself. 
Socialists are no more responsible for the forces that are so 
rapidly overturning the present system of industry than 
they are responsible for the economic class struggle in which 
it must go down. They seek to portray the inherent quali- 
ties of that system that make Socialism a necessity. They 
have but discovered the grand resultant of the developing 
forces of human institutions and the consequent human rela- 
tions that through these institutions must be established and 
maintained. 



The Social Revolution, by Karl 
Kautsky, is in two parts. Part I, Re- 
form and Revolution, explains the dif- 
ference in purpose and method be- 
tween revolutionary socialism, which 
seeks to overthrow and abolish the cap- 
italist class, and the various reform 
movements, which seek to improve 
present conditions while leaving the 
capitalists in control. 

Part II is entitled On the Day After 
the Revolution. No one knows and no 
one can know what will happen when 
the working class comes into power, 
but Kautsky has analyzed better than 
any other writer the necessary outcome 
of the conditions with which the vic- 
torious proletariat will have to deal. 

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153 Kinzie Street, Chicago. 



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